Templating Methods for Materials Fabrication Across Scales

Templating methods have emerged as a powerful toolbox for the rational design and scalable fabrication of nanostructured and hierarchical materials with controlled morphology, dimensionality, and spatial organization. By leveraging predefined scaffolds across molecular, colloidal, and macroscopic length scales, templated synthesis and template-assisted self-assembly enable the bottom-up construction of materials with tailored structural and functional properties. This review provides a comprehensive overview of templating strategies categorized by operational scale and templating modality. We first discuss nanoscale and microscale templating approaches based on colloidal, molecular, and other noncolloidal templates. We then examine template-assisted self-assembly strategies guided by nanoscale and macroscale templates that facilitate the organization of building blocks into ordered architectures. Next, multiscale integration strategies that bridge bottom-up and top-down fabrication are reviewed, including physical-field-directed assembly and 3D-printed templates. Finally, representative applications in photonics, energy conversion and storage, and biomedicine are presented, followed by an outlook on future opportunities and challenges in the fabrication of hierarchical materials via templating.