Ultrathin AAO template was carefully transferred onto the target substrate. Au catalysts were then deposited by using ion beam evaporation technique. The AAO membrane was then peeled off by a tape, remaining only as an ordered Au nanodot array. Taking the Au nanodots as catalyst, nanowire growth can be carried out by many techniques such as pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Fabrication of variety nanowire arrays like MgO, ZnO, GaAs and carbon nanotube have been reported. 

Fig. 1 Schematic illustration of the proposed process to fabricate sublithographic scale VLS nanowires by using attached AAO freestanding membrane mask.

Reference: 

RSC Advance 2, 10618–10623 (2012)；Materials Letters, 154, 40–43 (2015), Applied Physics Letters 81, 5177-5179 (2002); Chemistry of Materials 16, 2757-2761(2004); Applied Physics Letters 75, 2047-2049 (1999);

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2012/RA/C2RA21643D

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167577X15005984

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/81/27/10.1063/1.1532772

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cm049588p

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/75/14/10.1063/1.124911