Relating the optical absorption coefficient of nanosheet dispersions to the intrinsic monolayer absorption

The concentration of nanosheet suspensions is an important technological parameter which is commonly measured by optical spectroscopy, using the absorption coefficient to transform absorbance into concentration. However, for all 2D materials, the absorption coefficient is poorly known, resulting in potentially large errors in measured concentration. Here we derive an expression relating the optical absorption coefficient of an isotropic dispersion of nanosheets to the intrinsic monolayer absorption. This has allowed us to calculate the absorption coefficients for suspensions of graphene, MoS2 and other 2D materials, and to estimate the monolayer absorption for new materials from careful measurement of the suspension absorption coefficient.