The fabrication of microstructures by two-photon polymerization has been widely reported as a means of directly writing three-dimensional nanoscale structures. In the majority of cases a single point serial writing technique is used to form a polymer model. Single layer writing can also be used to fabricate two-dimensional patterns and we report an extension of this capability by using two-photon polymerization to form a template that can be used as a sacrificial layer for a novel lift-off process. A Ti:sapphire laser, with wavelength 795 nm, 80 MHz repetition rate, 100 fs pulse duration and an average power of 700 mW, was used to write 2D grid patterns with pitches of 0.8 and 1.0 mm in a urethane acrylate resin that was spun on to a lift-off base layer. This was overcoated with gold and the grid lifted away to leave an array of gold islands. The optical transmission properties of the gold arrays were measured and found to be in agreement with a rigorous coupled-wave analysis simulation. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.