After thermal deposition of 2 nm Au onto n-layer graphenes, due to the different surface diffusion barriers or coefficients among n-layer graphenes, gold morphologies are dependent on the layer number of graphenes, which can be applied to determine the microscopic structures of graphenes: the folded graphene, stacked or mixed graphene layers, graphene with nanometer-scale size, and the stacking order between the top and down graphene layers. Meanwhile, obvious surface-enhanced Raman scattering has been detected at 633 nm laser excitation, which is also dependent on the layer number of graphenes. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.