Approaching an organic semimetal: Electron pockets at the Fermi level for a p-benzoquinonemonoimine zwitterion.

Abstract

There is compelling evidence of electron pockets, at the Fermi level, in the band structure for an organic zwitterion molecule of the p-benzoquinonemonoimine type. The electronic structure of the zwitterion molecular film has a definite, although small, density of states evident at the Fermi level as well as a nonzero inner potential and thus is very different from a true insulator. In spite of a small Brillouin zone, significant band width is observed in the intermolecular band dispersion. The results demonstrate that Bloch's theorem applies to the wave vector dependence of the electronic band structure formed from the molecular orbitals of adjacent molecules in a molecular thin film of a p-benzoquinonemonoimine type zwitterion.