Researchers have developed an original method — soft-confinement pattern-induced nanoparticle segregation (SCPINS) — to fabricate polymer nanocomposite thin films with well-controlled nanoparticle organization on a submicron scale. This new method uniquely controls the organization of any kind of nanoparticles into patterns in those films, which may be useful for applications involving sensors, nanowire circuitry or diffraction gratings, with proper subsequent processing steps like thermal or UV sintering that are likely required.