In the paper an attempt has been made to use the laser-induced plasma as an X-ray source for the growth of nanostructures on the surface of gold. For this purpose, an Nd:YAG laser operated at second harmonics (lambda = 532 nm, E = 400 mJ) is used to produce plasma from analytical grade 5N pure Al, Cu and W targets. An analytical grade ( 5N pure) gold substrate was irradiated by X-rays generated from Al, Cu and W plasma under the vacuum similar to 10(-4) Torr. The surface was analyzed by two techniques, XRD and AFM. The aberrations in the XRD peaks show that there are significant structural changes in the exposed gold, in terms of decreased reflection intensities, increased dislocation line density, changes in the d-spacing and disturbance in the periodicity of the planes. AFM used to explore the topography of the irradiated gold reveals that regardless of the source, nm sized hillocks have been produced on the gold surface. The roughness of the surface has increased due to the growth of these hillocks. (C) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.