Transfer-free electrical insulation of epitaxial graphene from its metal   substrate
  High-quality, large-area epitaxial graphene can be grown on metal surfaces but its transport properties cannot be exploited because the electrical conduction is dominated by the substrate. Here we insulate epitaxial graphene on Ru(0001) by a step-wise intercalation of silicon and oxygen, and the eventual formation of a SiO$_2$ layer between the graphene and the metal. We follow the reaction steps by x-ray photoemission spectroscopy and demonstrate the electrical insulation using a nano-scale multipoint probe technique. 
Silvano Lizzit, Rosanna Larciprete, Paolo Lacovig, Matteo Dalmiglio,   Fabrizio Orlando, Alessandro Baraldi, Lauge Gammelgaa...
cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.mtrl-sci