The present invention relates to methods for producing a patterned thin film on a substrate. The method comprises the spatially and possibly also temporally modulation of nucleation modes of film growth during the growth of patterned thin films. The nucleation modes are modulated between no or substantially no nucleation, 2D nucleation, and 3D nucleation. The modulation is obtained by adjusting the surface treatment spatially applied over regions of the substrate, the growth conditions for the thin film materials used, and/or the specific thin film materials used. The growth conditions typically comprise the substrate temperature and the deposition flux. The modulation allows for spatially varying the interaction between the substrate material and the thin film materials deposited.