Mesostructured and nanocrystalline cerium oxide materials with a coral-like structure were self-assembled using amino acids as templates. The samples were characterized by N-2-adsorption, XRD, SEM, and Raman spectroscopy. The influence of the amino acid structure and composition on the final CeO2 nanodomain structure and crystal size was investigated. The XRD and Raman data indicate a direct correlation between the amino and carboxylic group positions in the structure of linear-, branched, and ring-amino acids and the crystal size of CeO2, Which ranges from 6 to 30 nm in diameter. In contrast, the final coral-like nanodomain structures are independent on the amino acid used as template. The results demonstrate a synthetic method for hierarchical architectures in which the final CeO2 crystal size can be controlled by the use of amino acids in the self-assembly process. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.