We demonstrate a new versatile strategy to rapidly heat and cool subdiffraction-limited volumes of material with a focused light beam. The local temperature rise is obtained by exploiting the unique optical properties of metallic nanostructures that facilitate efficient light-to-heat conversion through the excitation of surface plasmons (collective electron oscillations). By locally heating nanoscale metallic catalysts, growth of semiconductor nanowires and carbon nanotubes can be initiated and controlled at arbitrarily prespecified locations and down to the single nanostructure level in a room-temperature chamber. This local heating strategy can be orders of magnitude (>10(5)) more energy efficient than conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) tools in which an entire chamber/substrate is heated. For these reasons, it has great potential for use in process- and energy-efficient assembly of nanowires into complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible device architectures. In general, the high degree of spatial and temporal control over nanoscale thermal environments afforded by this method inspires new pathways for manipulating a range of important thermally stimulated processes and the development of novel photothermal devices.