Carbonaceous submicron sized islands: a surface patterning route to hierarchical macro/mesoporous thin films

A simple patterning method is presented, using dewetting as a surface exotemplate generating technique, to produce disk-like features of micron to submicron size. The localization of the templates is such that a large area of the substrate is covered when compared with other techniques like colloidal templating or nanosphere lithography. The method is accessible and convenient and can be used to pattern areas of several dm2. Hierarchically ordered mesoporous SiO2 thin films possessing submicron sized cavities were prepared by combining this patterning method with sol–gel and surfactant templation. The mesopore arrangement was found to be severely influenced by the constraints imposed by the surface topology, leading to a different crystalline orientation.