Magnetic nanoparticles are interesting, both as model structures for the study of the fundamentals of magnetic behavior, and for applications in data storage. New methods for data storage will become important in the next few years because the continuous thin film media used in present-day hard disks are increasingly subject to thermal instability at high data densities, leading to loss of recorded data. One solution is to use 'patterned media', in which each bit is defined lithographically and read using a magnetic head or magneto-optical probe tip. Another application for magnetic nanostructures is in magnetic random access memories (MRAM), in which data are stored in submicron magnetoresistive elements. In this seminar, we will discuss the properties of thin-film magnetic rings, bars, and dots made using various lithography methods including self-assembled block copolymer lithography, electron-beam lithography, and interference lithography.