TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - INORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Components: The nanostructured layer is formed by: disposing a precursor sol on a substrate, where the precursor sol includes covalent metal complexes with titanium, surfactants and a solvent; evaporating the solvent from the precursor sol to form the surfactant-templated film; controlling the size of the pores formed in the surfactant-templated film such that the pores have diameters of 20-50 nm with adjacent pores spaced at 10-50 nm; and covalently crosslinking the surfactant-templated film to form a layer of porous material, where the film is based on the covalent metal complexes of titanium. The surfactant-templated film and the pore-filing material have different electron affinities. The surfactant-templated film comprises a covalently crosslinked surfactant-templated film or self-assembled surfactant-templated film. The pores extend from a bottom surface of the film to a top surface of the film. The array of structures is formed by forming the nanostructured layer and filling the pores in the nanostructured porous layer with a semiconducting or conducting pore-filling material. The size of pores has been controlled by either: adding a chelating agent to the precursor sol, using a solvent/titanium molar ratio of 10-50 in the precursor sol; or adding a pore-swelling agent to the precursor sol; or using a block co-polymer having a molecular weight of 5000-14000 grams per mol as the surfactant in the precursor sol. The transparent conducting electrode comprises a transparent conducting oxide, indium tin oxide or transparent conducting polymer. The transparent conducting electrode further includes an array of spaced apart wires, mesh of wires, grid of wires or many parallel wires. The base electrode comprises a sheet of carbon, gold, or silver-coated steel foil, sheet of aluminum or copper-coated steel foil, metal-coated plastic foil or metallized plastic substrate.    TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - POLYMERS - Preferred Components: The pore filling material is perylenes, phthalocyanines, merocyanines, terylenes, squaraines, ruthenium complexes, pentacenes, naphthalocyanines, poly(phenylene), polyphenylvinylene, poly(isothianaphthene), poly-fluorenes, polyparaphenylene, spiro compounds, poly(squaraine), poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), poly(thiophene), polyacetylene, conjugated C-60, polyaniline, dendrimers or their derivatives. EXAMPLE - No suitable example given.