Porous materials, such as silica gel and activated carbon, possess a large number of small pores, and consequently, they have very large specific surface area (i.e. areas for making contact with other substances). Taking this advantage, they have been used for adsorbents, desiccants, and catalyst supports (substances that maintain catalysts in active conditions).

Porous materials with regularly arranged meso-scaled pores (2-50 nm in diameter) are promising nanomaterials to future applications through controlled incorporation of various materials. Films of these mesoporous materials are of special interest to optical and electronic applications. However, the macroscopic arrangement of the mesopores over the whole film had not been controlled in conventional mesoporous films, although they have a regular local porous structure.

Canon has succeeded in resolving this issue using self-assembly of molecules on the substrate surface, and developed a technique for the preparation of mesoporous silica (SiO₂) films, in which uniform tubular mesopores with a diameter of approximately 3 nm are aligned in one direction, on a glass substrate.