Gravity-assisted seeding control for 1-D material growth

This letter presents a seeding control scheme by utilizing gravity force to form an agglomeration of molten Co seeds on a patterned inverted silicon nanopyramid. Nanometer sized molten Co seeds formed on a nonwettable inverted pyramid surface can roll along the inclination followed by aggregation to form a singular seed with the size depending on the pyramid size and the thickness of as-deposited Co film inside the pyramid. The proposed scheme allowing the formation of well-aligned catalytic seeds with manipulated size will promise the control growth of 1-D material for practical integrated microelectronic device fabrication.