Substrate effects on quasiparticles and excitons in graphene nanoflakes

The effects of substrate on electronic and optical properties of triangular and hexagonal graphene nanoflakes with armchair edges are investigated by using a configuration interaction approach beyond double excitation scheme. The quasiparticle correction to the energy gap and exciton binding energy are found to be dominated by the long-range Coulomb interactions and exhibit similar dependence on the dielectric constant of the substrate, which leads to a cancellation of their contributions to the optical gap. As a result, the optical gaps are shown to be insensitive to the dielectric environment and unexpectedly close to the single-particle gaps.