With the application of voltage pulses, mounds of 20 nm in diameter and 2 nm in height on the average can be created on a gold surface with very high efficiency in nonconducting liquid from a gold tip. The created mounds are similar to those produced in air. Tungsten and PtIr tips are also used in this study and the dominant shapes of created structures are craters and volcanolike mounds, respectively. Our data show that these nanometer structures are created by a mechanical contact between the tip and the sample. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.