First-principles design of a half-filled flat band of the kagome lattice in two-dimensional metal-organic frameworks

Abstract

We design from first principles a type of two-dimensional metal-organic framework (MOF) using phenalenyl-based ligands to exhibit a half-filled flat band of the kagome lattice, which is one of a family of lattices that show Lieb-Mielke-Tasaki's flat-band ferromagnetism. Among various MOFs, we find that trans-Au-THTAP (THTAP=trihydroxytriaminophenalenyl) has such an ideal band structure, where the Fermi energy is adjusted right at the flat band due to unpaired electrons of radical phenalenyl. The spin-orbit coupling opens a band gap giving a nonzero Chern number to the nearly flat band, as confirmed by the presence of the edge states in first-principles calculations and by fitting to the tight-binding model. This is a novel and realistic example of a system in which a nearly flat band is both ferromagnetic and topologically nontrivial.