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Lithography is a key technology enabling progress both in fundamental research and in widespread applications. Besides standard technologies new alternative approaches have emerged over the last few years. Here we summarize the status of the field of atom lithography where light is used to focus matter on the nanometre scale. Using the special features of the atom–light interaction a variety of structures can be produced with a spatial period limited to half the wavelength of the light. Further reduction of feature separation can be obtained utilizing the substructure of atomic matter and light polarization. Also we show how, besides various lateral structures, three-dimensional patterns can be generated in a single-step process utilizing the selectivity of the atom–light interaction.