Pixel-wise classification in graphene-detection with tree-based machine learning algorithms

Mechanical exfoliation of graphene and its identification by optical inspection is one of the milestones in condensed matter physics that sparked the field of two-dimensional materials. Finding regions of interest from the entire sample space and identification of layer number is a routine task potentially amenable to automatization. We propose supervised pixel-wise classification methods showing a high performance even with a small number of training image datasets that require short computational time without GPU. We introduce four different tree-based machine learning (ML) algorithms—decision tree, random forest, extreme gradient boost, and light gradient boosting machine. We train them with five optical microscopy images of graphene, and evaluate their performances with multiple metrics and indices. We also discuss combinatorial ML models between the three single classifiers and assess their performances in identification and reliability. The code developed in this paper is open to the public and will be released at github.com/gjung-group/Graphene_segmentation.