Suppression of Inhomogeneous Segregation in Graphene Growth on Epitaxial Metal Films

Large-scale uniform graphene growth was achieved by suppressing inhomogeneous carbon segregation using a single domain Ru film epitaxially grown on a sapphire substrate. An investigation of how the metal thickness affected growth and a comparative study on metals with different crystal structures have revealed that locally enhanced carbon segregation at stacking domain boundaries of metal is the origin of inhomogeneous graphene growth. Single domain Ru film has no stacking domain boundary, and the graphene growth on it is mainly caused not by segregation but by a surface catalytic reaction. Suppression of local segregation is essential for uniform graphene growth on epitaxial metal films.