  Thermal decomposition of silicon carbide is a promising approach for the
fabrication of graphene. However, the atomistic growth mechanism of graphene
remains unclear. This paper describes the development of a new charge-transfer
interatomic potential. Carbon bonds with a wide variety of characteristics can
be reproduced by the proposed vectorized bond-order term. Large-scale thermal
decomposition simulation enables us to observe the continuous growth process of
the multi-ring carbon structure. The annealing simulation reveals the atomistic
process by which the multi-ring carbon structure is transformed to flat
graphene involving only 6-membered rings. Also, it is found that the surface
atoms of the silicon carbide substrate enhance the homogeneous graphene
formation.
