Many attempts have been made to break the diffraction limit, a major problem in optical lithography. Here, we report and demonstrate a lithography method, quantum optical lithography, able to attain 1 nm resolution by optical means using new materials (fluorescent photosensitive glass–ceramics and QMC-5 resist). The performance is several times better than that described for any optical or electron beam lithography (EBL) methods. The written patterns on resist were transferred to Si wafer. SEM measurements show 5 nm line widths.