A two-step ion-beam assisted texturing process has been developed to generate 10 nm thick MgO bicrystal templates on technical important substrates. The in-plane tilt grain boundary angle can be selected from nearly the whole range of few to 45 degrees by simply rotating the sample azimuthally with respect to the incident ion beam. Using this process, 10 nm thick, 45-degree in-plane-tilt MgO bicrystal templates and microarrays have been obtained on Si substrates. By choosing appropriate masks, this process may be applied for generating bicrystal arrays of sophisticated geometry and multiple-scale dimension, which are desired for various thin-film electronic device applications. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.