Single Terrace Growth of Graphene on a Metal Surface

The epitaxial growth of graphene by chemical vapor deposition of ethylene on a Ru(0001) surface was monitored by high-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. The in situ data show that at low pressures and high temperatures the metal surface facets into large terraces, leading to much better ordered graphene layers than resulting from the known growth mode. Density functional theory calculations show that the single terrace growth mode can be understood from the energetics of the graphene-metal interaction.