The ability to write a material pattern directly on a substrate without involving lithography is of considerable technological importance. Research efforts have been targeted towards the development of metal microstrips [1-13] and more recently of microconnections made of high-temperature superconductors [14-16]. Two major approaches have been taken, both employing an intense laser beam as the modus operandi. In the first method organometallic/inorganic precursors are dissociated by laser-induced chemical reactions along the narrow scanning path of the focused laser output [1-6, 8-11, 14]. In the second technique, laser-induced forward transfer [7, 12, 13, 15, 16], the illuminated parts of a thin film are selectively separated from its transparent substrate and transferred on to an adjacent substrate by a single laser shot. The present method of patterning (direct laser patterned deposition) does not require chemistry, a specialized environment or a prefabricated thin film. A substrate transparent at the wavelength of the laser light in use is essential to the method. The laser is focused through the substrate on to a polished bulk target in contact with the substrate. Material is ablated off the target by the laser and is deposited on the side of the substrate facing the target. Patterning is achieved by moving the substrate-target combination which is mounted on an x y stage under computer control in a predesigned fashion. The laser beam can also be scanned across the stationary substrate-target assembly by employing a computer-controlled mirror, an alternative which we have demonstrated. Independently, Cook [17] proposed a similar technique in a patent. As seen in Fig. 1, the laser light is directed via a 45 ° mirror through an adjustable focusing lens towards substrate-target combination. The laser light is transmitted through the transparent substrate and ablates material off the target. The substrate and target are either in direct contact or are separated by a spacer about 200/xm thick. The ablated material deposits on to the side of the substrate facing the target. The target is a polished disc of the material to be patterned on the substrate; the target needs no special preparation and can be re-used repeatedly. In order to generate patterns the substrate-target combination is moved on an x y stage under computer control. We employed the fundamental (1064 nm) as well as the frequency-doubled (532 nm) mode of an Nd:YAG laser operated at 30 Hz. For most applications we used the Q-switched mode which is characterized by a pulse width of about 10 ns. For heat-