Abstract: Nanostructured materials, devices having nanostructured materials, and methods for preparing nanostructured materials are disclosed herein. In some embodiments, the method includes infiltrating a soft template with a chemical precursor and subsequently heat treating the infiltrated template to produce a nanostructured material. The soft template can be a patterned soft template, where the pattern is created in a soft template precursor and defined by the user to place structural features at specified locations. In some embodiments, nanostructured materials can be ferroic nanostructures, including ferroelectric and ferromagnetic nanomaterials, having a user defined pattern and favorable structural characteristics, including defined aspect ratios, wall thicknesses, and other dimensions.