Engineering phase-frustration induced flat bands in an aza-triangulene covalent Kagome lattice

Abstract: Pi-conjugated covalent organic frameworks (COFs) provide a versatile platform for the realization of designer quantum nanomaterials. Strong electron-electron correlation within these artificial lattices can give rise to exotic phases of matter. Their experimental realization however requires precise control over orbital symmetry, charge localization, and band dispersion all arising from the effective hybridization between molecular linkers and nodes. Here, we present a modular strategy for constructing diatomic Kagome lattices from aza-[3]triangulene (A[3]T) nodes, in which a D3h symmetric ground state is stabilized through resonance contributions from a cumulenenic linker. First-principles density-functional theory and scanning tunnelling spectroscopy reveal that the hybridization of a sixfold degenerate set of edge-localized Wannier functions in the unit cell gives rise to orbital-phase frustration-induced non-trivial flat bands. These results establish a general design principle for engineering orbital interactions in organic lattices and open a pathway toward programmable COF-based quantum materials with correlated electronic ground states.