Interfacial bottom-up fabrication of ultrathin nanoporous films: techniques, characterization and applications

Abstract The bottom-up fabrication technique is one of the key technologies taking place in conventional top-down approaches to create nanoporous (NP) thin film materials with tailorable nanostructures such as film thickness, film density, pore form, and pore size with nanometer (or sub-nanometer)-scale accuracy. This progress review specifically highlights bottom-up fabrication techniques using two-phase interfaces including solid–gas interfaces, solid–liquid interfaces, liquid–liquid interfaces, and gas–liquid interfaces by referring to recent publications. Moreover, experimental techniques to analyze nanostructures of NP thin film materials from well-ordered regular structures to non-periodic structures are introduced. Finally, some emerging potential applications and future perspectives of NP thin film materials are mentioned by using the latest literature.