Growth of grass like architectures on Si substrate and its mechanism study

Grass like architectures were synthesized directly on Silicon substrate by thermal oxidation method with nickel catalyst at low temperature. Humidity and catalyst played an important role in the fabrication of the grass like architectures. The morphology of the grass-like architectures was controlled by heating temperature. The grass like architectures were observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM, JSM-7000FK), Energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The grass like architectures were approximately 8-70μm in size with 1-2.5μm width leaves. The growth of grass like architectures affected by oxidation, vertical stress induced, and horizontal compressive stress was studied in details.