  Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are an important class of materials that
present intriguing opportunities in the fields of sensing, gas storage,
catalysis, and optoelectronics. Very recently, two-dimensional (2D) MOFs have
been proposed as a flexible material platform for realizing exotic quantum
phases including topological and anomalous quantum Hall insulators.
Experimentally, direct synthesis of 2D MOFs has been essentially confined to
metal substrates, where the interaction with the substrate masks the intrinsic
electronic properties of the MOF. Here, we demonstrate synthesis of 2D
honeycomb metal-organic frameworks on a weakly interacting epitaxial graphene
substrate. Using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic
force microscopy (AFM) complemented by density-functional theory (DFT)
calculations, we show the formation of 2D band structure in the MOF decoupled
from the substrate. These results open the experimental path towards MOF-based
designer quantum materials with complex, engineered electronic structures.
