Vibration spectra of different carbon‐based materials—soot, natural flake graphite, exfoliated graphite and, single‐walled nanotubes—have been studied by SEIRA (surface enhanced infrared absorption) spectroscopy and compared with FTIR and Raman spectroscopy. The SEIRA method is a more sensitive tool for characterisation of contamination structure and optical properties of carbon materials than conventional IR spectroscopy. Our study showed that second‐order modes in Raman spectra could be used for characterisation of nanodimensional tube‐like structure in carbon materials.