In this work, we investigate the intrinsic as well as modulated optical properties of the
AB-stacking bilayer armchair graphene ribbons in the absence and presence of external electric fields. Single-layer ribbons are also considered for comparison. By using a tight-binding model in combination with the gradient approximation, we examine the energy bands, the density of states and the absorption spectra of the studied structures. Our results demonstrate that when external fields are not present, the low-frequency optical absorption spectra display numerous peaks and they vanish at the zero point. In addition, the number, the position, and the intensity of the absorption peaks are strongly associated with the ribbon width. With the wider ribbon
width, more absorption peaks are present and a lower threshold absorption frequency is observed. Interestingly, in the presence of electric fields, bilayer armchair ribbons exhibit a lower threshold absorption frequency, more absorption peaks, and weaker spectral intensity. When increasing the strength of the electric field, the prominent peaks of the edge-dependent selection rules are lowered, and the sub-peaks satisfying the extra selection rules come to exist. The obtained results certainly provide a ore comprehensive understanding of the correlation between the energy band transition and the optical absorption, in both single-layer and bilayer graphene armchair ribbons, and could provide new insights into developments of optoelectronic device applications based on graphene bilayer ribbons.