Mesoporous carbon thin films (MCTFs) doped with nitrogen was synthesized by replication of mesoporous silica thin films. Nitrogen dopants were introduced by using nitrogencontaining polypyrrole as the carbon precursor through electrodeposition. The electron microscopic data on MCTFs showed replication with fidelity of the pore structure of mesoporous silica films. The nitrogen content of MCTFs is relatively high and a large fraction of them (∼40%) is pyridinic, the most catalytically active form of nitrogen dopants in carbon. Electrochemical characterization data show that MCTFs have high electrocatalytic properties for the iodine/iodide redox reactions and a large capacitance with the geometric capacitance of 3.92 mF cm −2 , the largest for porous carbon materials synthesized by pyrolysis of carbon precursors.

We report on the syntheses of nanostructured Pt films with three different feature sizes of 3, 6 and 9 nm and their effects to the surface enhance Raman spectroscopy of rhodamine 6G (Rh6G) analytes. The syntheses of the Pt films have been achieved through templating the pore structures of mesoporous silica thin films (MSTFs). For the purpose of the present study, we synthesized three MSTFs with pore sizes 3, 6 and 9 nm. Other than the pore sizes, the silica thin films have the same pore structures. The Pt films have been synthesized by depositing Pt into the pores of the template MSTFs and removing the templates after the deposition. The Pt films produce strong Raman spectra of Rh6G with the intensity increasing as the feature size of the Pt film increases. Simulations of the induced electromagnetic fields on the Pt films show the same trend as the observed Raman intensity with the feature size.