p Orbital Flat Band and Dirac Cone in the Electronic Honeycomb Lattice
Thomas S. Gardenier, J. J. van den Broeke, Jesper R. Moes, Ingmar Swart, Christophe Delerue, Marlou R. Slot, C. Morais Smith, Daniël Vanmaekelbergh
Abstract
orbitals in a honeycomb lattice lead to potentially useful quantum electronic phases. So far, p orbital bands were only realized for cold atoms in optical lattices and for light and exciton-polaritons in photonic crystals. For electrons, in-plane p orbital physics is difficult to access since natural electronic honeycomb lattices, such as graphene and silicene, show strong s-p hybridization. Here, we report on electronic honeycomb lattices prepared on a Cu(111) surface in a scanning tunneling microscope that, by design, show (nearly) pure orbital bands, including the p orbital flat band and Dirac cone.