Oriented crystal growth on amorphous substrates using artificial surface-relief gratings

Abstract

Oriented crystal growth on an amorphous substrate has been achieved using an artificially created surface-relief grating. Crystallites of KCl grown from a water solution onto a 320-nm spatial-period square-wave grating in SiO2 nucleated preferentially at vertical steps and grew with 〈100〉 directions parallel to the grating axis. It is proposed that artificially created surface microstructures may provide a new means of manipulating the growth and orientation of crystalline overlayers.