The importance of cell membranes in biological systems has: prompted the. development of artificial lipid bilayers, which can mimic the cellular membrane:Structure. Supported lipid bilayers, (SLBs) have emerged as a promising avenue for studying basic membrane processes and for possible biotechnological applications. Conventional methods for SLB formation involve the spreading of lipid vesicles on hydrophilic solid supports. Herein, a facile approach for the construction of tethered SLB within an oxidized porous, Si (pSiO(2)) nanostructure, avoiding liposome preparation, is presented. We employ a two-step lipid self-assembly process, in which a first lipid layer is tethered to the pore walls resulting in a highly stable monolayer. A subsequent solvent exchange step induces the self-assembly of the unbound lipids into a robust SLB. Formation of pSiO(2)-SLB is confirmed by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), and the properties of the confined SLB are characterized by environment-sensitive fluorophores. The unique optical properties of the pSiO(2) support are employed to monitor in real time the partitioning of a model amphiphilic molecule within the SLB, via reflective interferometric Fourier transform spectroscopy (RIFTS) method. These self-reporting SLB platforms provide a highly generic approach for bottom-up construction of complex lipid architectures for performing biological assays at the micro- and nanoscale.