Imaging Gate-Tunable Single-Layer Molecular Kagome Lattices

Abstract

Kagome lattices provide a simple geometry for engineering electronic states that exhibit novel quantum behavior. In conventional kagome materials, however, the relevant states are often embedded in chemically complex three-dimensional crystals and are difficult to isolate or tune. Molecule-based kagome networks offer structural precision and tunability, but have largely been confined to metallic substrates incompatible with 2D devices. Here we report growth of single-layer Ni$_3$(HITP)$_2$ metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) on van der Waals substrates including graphene-based field-effect devices using metal-salt molecular beam epitaxy. Low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy resolves kagome-derived flat-band and van Hove singularity-based spectral features consistent with first-principles calculations. Gating hybrid 2D MOF devices allows us to energetically shift kagome spectral features, thus establishing electrostatic control of chemically programmable 2D kagome electronic lattices.