The formation of free-standing gold nanosieves by ablation with ultra-short laser pulses is demonstrated. Macroscopic areas are generated fast and efficiently by the application of a parallel production technique. The technique is based on a lens array formed by self-assembling quartz microspheres on a thin metal foil. The evaporated foils have a final thickness of 400 nm, and the hole spacing is set by the diameter of the microspheres (similar to 7 mu m) while the pore size is similar to 700 nm. The characteristic spacing of the generated hole structure is verified by an optical diffraction technique. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.