Despite the promising application of patterned Si wafers (PSWs) in electrochemistry and photochemistry, the simple and environment-friendly fabrication of these PSWs is still a great challenge. Herein, we report a novel method for fabrication of PSWs via Rochow reaction, which is commonly used to produce organosilane monomers for synthesizing organosilane products in chemical industry. In this reaction, commercial Si wafers (SWs) reacted with gas CH3Cl over patterned various Cu-based catalyst to create regular patterns. PSWs were obtained after removal of Cu compounds followed with facile post treatment. Because of simplicity, low-cost and low-toxicity of this approach, the manufacture of PSWs on an industrial scale is highly possible, which can be realized by integrating the organosilane synthesis process and controlling the reaction conditions. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.