Heim M., Kuhn A.,
In Handbook of Electrochemistry, Springer, in press, 2013. Book Chapter
In recent years, the field of highly ordered macroporous thin films coated onto solid electrode surfaces has received increasing attention, on the one hand due to interesting fundamental questions, and on the other hand because of a large variety of potential applications of such designer structures, ranging from electrocatalysis to biosensors and energy storage/conversion. This chapter describes the synthesis, the characterization and the features of such organized layers, with a special emphasis on an increasingly sophisticated and rational design, which is possible when using colloidal crystal structures as templates. Some possible applications of such modified electrodes are also highlighted in the last section of the chapter, illustrating their beneficial effects in various domains, going eventually far beyond pure electrochemical aspects.