Momentum-selective optical absorption in triptycene molecular membrane

Abstract

The optical properties of triptycene molecular membranes (TMMs) under the linearly and circularly polarized light irradiation have been theoretically studied. Since TMMs have the double-layered Kagome lattice structures for their $\pi$-electrons, i.e., tiling of trigonal and hexagonal-symmetric rings, the electronic band structures of TMMs have non-equivalent Dirac cones and perfect flat bands. By constructing the tight-binding model to describe the pi-electronic states of TMMs, we have evaluated the optical absorption intensities and valley selective excitation of TMMs based on the Kubo formula. It is found that absorption intensities crucially depend on both light polarization angle and the excitation position in momentum space, i.e., the momentum and valley selective optical excitation. The polarization dependence and optical selection rules are also clarified by using group theoretical analyses.