We report a simple and versatile self-assembly method for controlling the placement of functional gold nanoparticles on silicon substrates using micellar templates. The hierarchical positioning of gold nanoparticles is achieved in one-step during the spontaneous phase inversion of spherical poly(styrene)block-poly(2-vinylpyridine) copolymer micelles into nanoring structures. The placement is mainly driven by the establishment of electrostatic interactions between the nanoparticle ligands and the pyridine groups exposed at the interface. In particular, we show the formation of ordered arrangements of single gold nanoparticles or nanoparticle clusters and demonstrate that their morphologies, densities and periodicities can be tuned by simply varying the initial block copolymer molecular weight or the deposition conditions. Besides gold nanoparticles, the method can be used for controlling the assembly of a large variety of nanoscale building blocks, thus opening an attractive pathway for generating functional hybrid surfaces with periodic nanopatterns. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.