Binary materials, comprised by two dissimilar components in one matrix, already exist in nature from the subatomic to the universal scale with different kinds of forms (e.g., nuclei and electrons, matter and antimatter) [1]. With the progress of nanotechnology, binary materials assembled in nanoscale become an important principle to pursuit innovative functions [2]. Especially when the binary sub-components are in the interplay distance, intimate coupling between these components becomes dominant and endows the macroscopic materials with unique physical and/or chemical phenomena with superior functionalities that cannot be achieved by either of the individual sub-components. Therefore, many strategies, including 'bottom-up' wet-chemicals and 'top-down' physical-approaches, have been intensively explored to synthesize different binary materials [3][4][5][6][7]. However, the resultant binary materials are usually facing limited option of compositions and morphologies, as well as poor controlling of distributions and distances. Therefore, exploiting an effective solution to address these issues and realize the practical implementation is a significant request.Recently, Lei and colleagues at the Ilmenau University of Technology in Germany reported a concept of binary nanostructuring to tackle this long-standing challenge [8]. They ingeniously employed a unique binary-pore anodized aluminium oxide (AAO) template to successfully realize diverse binary materials on large scale. The most important key of their technique is using a selective etching process to generate the binary-pore template, which possesses not only two sets of pores (e.g., square-shaped and round-shaped pores) but also two barriers located on the opposite side of the template (Fig. 1a). These features enable the researchers to modulate each set of pore size and shape in a high degree of freedom, as well as to deposit different materials in each set of pores separately (Fig. 1b and e).From the in-situ scanning electron microscope (SEM) investigation and electric field simulation on the as-prepared template, the authors concluded that a combination of electric-field assisted dissolution and plastic oxide flow gives rise to the growth of the unique binary-pore structures (Fig. 1c). Based on this purposed mechanism, they successfully developed ternary-and quadruple-pore templates with the same selective etching process. More interestingly, the morphology of the new etched pores, like C-pores in the ternary-pore template, can be adjusted not only by the selective etching time but also by the size difference of A-pore and B-pore. Therefore, with the size difference of A-pore and B-pore decreasing, the shape of C-pores can gradually change from oval to round (Fig. 1d). Considering that their binary-pore templates are also realizable in a wide range of interpore distance from 142 ± 13 to 573 ± 27 nm, the capability of the binary-pore template is far more beyond than those of the state-of-art hard and soft templates [9].Combining with well-established approa...