Silicon nanostructures were fabricated by a natural lithography technique, with sizes far beyond the limit of conventional, by a self-organizing gold colloidal particle monolayer as an etch mask. The silicon nanostructures with high density and uniformity in height and shape were obtained using reactive ion etching (RIE). The uniform spatial distribution of the Si nanostructures can also be obtained. The resulting nanostructures were investigated by scanning electron microscopy. This method can be applied to patterning a wide variety of thin film materials in to dot arrays. © 2006 IEEE.