Role of defects in the process of graphene growth on hexagonal boron nitride from atomic carbon

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is an attractive substrate for graphene, as the interaction between these materials is weak enough for high carrier mobility to be retained in graphene but strong enough to allow for some epitaxial relationship. We deposited graphene on exfoliated h-BN by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), we analyzed the atomistic details of the process by ab initio density functional theory (DFT), and we linked the DFT and MBE results by random walk theory. Graphene appears to nucleate around defects in virgin h-BN. The DFT analysis reveals that sticking of carbon to perfect h-BN is strongly reduced by desorption, so that pre-existing seeds are needed for the nucleation. The dominant nucleation seeds are CNCB and ONCN pairs and B2O3 inclusions in the virgin substrate. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.