Patterned production of silver-mesoporous titania nanocomposite thin films using lithography-assisted metal reduction.

A simple method that allows selective positioning of nanoparticles into mesoporous monolayer or multilayer thin films is presented. This technique applies UV lithography in order to bring about in situ light-induced reduction of silver in templated cavities of TiO2. The nanoparticle lithography presented here provides a novel approach to hierarchical lithography patterning for multifunctional devices.