First-principles calculations on optical properties of the plasmonic material ReO3 and analysis of films transparency

Rhenium trioxide (ReO3) is metallic in nature and exhibits characteristics of advanced functional plasmonic material. However, the optical and relevant properties of the plasmonic material ReO3 are not well understood. In this work, the electronic band structure and optical properties of ReO3 were investigated with density functional theory based first-principles calculations. It was discovered that the optical properties and the plasma energy of ReO3 are consistent with the reported experimental results. In particular, the collective oscillation (volume plasmon) of ReO3 occurs in the visible range, which indicates that it is visible light transparency. The plasma oscillation of ReO3 occurs in the NIR range, which leads to strong near-infrared absorption characteristics. In addition, it can be found that the ReO3 films have high transparency in visible light and strong near-infrared shielding performance.