Table 1. Summary of the Prevalently Used Nontemplated Patterning Methods.

methods	types of substrates	types of particles (materials, shape, size)	interparticle distance	reported patterned areas	refs
liquid/liquid and liquid/air interfaces	glass, Si, TEM grids, semiconductors (GaAs)	polymers, metals, oxides, spheres, rods, and platelets, with sizes of 5 nm to hundreds of microns	usually close-packed but can control distance with substrate insertion/removal angle	up to 2 cm2	(16,17,33)
dip-coating	glass, Si	metal spheres and semiconductor (QD) spheres, several nm to microns	close-packed	up to 2 in. wafers	(18−20)
Langmuir–Blodgett	glass, Si	SiO2, polymer spheres, hundreds of nanometers to hundreds of microns	usually close-packed (distances can be controlled by ligands or polymer shells)	up to 3 in. wafers	(15,25,42)
BCML	Si wafers, glass, ITO	mainly Au (Pt, Ni are possible but difficult), spherical NPs, 5 to 15 nm	from 30 to 300 nm	up to 4 in. wafers	(38−40)
spin-coating	ITO	mainly Au spheres and rods, but also CdSe NPs, 10–70 nm	close-packed up to 60 nm	several square centimeters	(41)