  We investigate the effect of Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) on the
optoelectronic properties of n- and p-type monolayer MoS2. The optical
conductivity is calculated within the Kubo formalism. We find that the
spin-flip transitions enabled by the Rashba SOC result in a wide absorption
window in the optical spectrum. Furthermore, we evaluate the effects of the
polarization direction of the radiation, temperature, carrier density, and the
strength of the Rashba spin-orbit parameter on the optical conductivity. We
find that the position, width, and shape of the absorption peak or absorption
window can be tuned by varying these parameters. This study shows that
monolayer MoS2 can be a promising tunable optical and optoelectronic material
that is active in the infrared to terahertz spectral range.
