Revealing the Local Electronic Structure of a Single-Layer Covalent Organic Framework through Electronic Decoupling

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b03998
• Publication Date: 2020-01-08T02:48:10Z
• Authors: Daniel J. Rizzo; Qingqing Dai; Christopher Bronner; Gregory Veber; Brian J. Smith; Michio Matsumoto; Simil Thomas; Giang D. Nguyen; Patrick R. Forrester; William Zhao; Jakob H. Jørgensen; William R. Dichtel; Felix R. Fischer; Hong Li; Jean-Luc Bredas; Michael F. Crommie
• Keywords: biphenyl COF (BP-COF); Chemistry; density functional theory (DFT); scanning tunneling microscopy (STM); Covalent organic frameworks (COFs); Kagome lattice; scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS); 2D polymer; 01 natural sciences; 0104 chemical sciences

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are molecule-based 2D and 3D materials that possess a wide range of mechanical and electronic properties. We have performed a joint experimental and theoretical study of the electronic structure of boroxine-linked COFs grown under ultrahigh vacuum conditions and characterized using scanning tunneling spectroscopy on Au(111) and hBN/Cu(111) substrates. Our results show that a single hBN layer electronically decouples the COF from the metallic substrate, thus suppressing substrate-induced broadening and revealing new features in the COF electronic local density of states (LDOS). The resulting sharpening of LDOS features allows us to experimentally determine the COF band gap, bandwidths, and the electronic hopping amplitude between adjacent COF bridge sites. These experimental parameters are consistent with the results of first-principles theoretical predictions.