We demonstrate a simple method to synthesize silver wires by thermal reduction of aqueous AgNO3 droplet with catalytic anatase TiO2 nanoparticles which were spin-coated on Si water. Structural characterization of the silver wires shows that the nanowires grow primarily along the [0 1 (1) over bar] direction. SEM image of the silver wires clearly shows the catalytic TiO2 nano-cluster attached to the end of the each silver wire. Since the process was surfactant-free, the silver nanowires prepared by our method retain the excellent electrical conductivity. The intrinsic resistivity calculated from the current-voltage curve for a wire with 12880.41 nm(2) cross-section area was 18.72 mu Omega cm, which is about 11.6 times higher than that of bulk silver (1.61 mu Omega cm). Our simple method can be also applied to generate CuO with ringshaped microstructure by using ITO conducting glass as matrix. We have found that the size and reproducibility are well-controllable. A single phase of CuO ring-shaped microstructure with outer diameters ranging from similar to 13 to 17 mu m and inner diameters ranging from similar to 1.4 to 3.3 mu m was obtained. The composition of CuO microring was confirmed by thin-film XRD and XPS analyses. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved