The integration of quartz on silicon in thin film form is appealing for its prospective applications in sensing and electronics. For instance, this could be used to make oscillators with higher resonance frequencies, in new electromechanical devices or mass sensors showing improved detection limits. We have recently reported the epitaxial growth of quartz films on silicon following a soft-chemistry approach1. The aim of this contribution is to discuss in detail the mechanisms of this synthesis. The films are obtained by the crystallization of amorphous silica films prepared by chemical solution deposition. Two key components of the solution are Sr2+, acting as catalyst for the crystallization of silica, and amphipilic templates playing the role of structuring agents and assisting in the crucial phase separation of the catalyst. The good matching between the quartz and silicon cell parameters is also essential in the stabilization of quartz over other SiO2 polymorphs and is at the origin of the epitaxial growth. The films are piezoelectric and can be tailored to be dense or to present an ordered porosity with pore diameters ranging from a few tenths of nanometer to the micron scale.