the characteristics of chemically sensitive nanostructures. Achieving flexible selected-area compositions governed at the nanoscale is thus challenging but urgent for constructing functional nanostructures and advanced devices. In particular, such study is necessary for understanding the essential physics and extending device functions to further engineer and manipulate individual 1D nanostructures. [8] Vanadium dioxide (VO 2 ) is a prototypical correlated material with a metalinsulator transition and has attracted considerable interest in modern electronics and fundamental physics research. The structural phase transition of VO 2 occurs near room temperature, accompanied by a simultaneous change in electronic and optical characteristics. [9] Meanwhile, VO 2 1D nanobeams or nanowires have attracted significant attention in the metal-insulator transition communities. Vanadium oxides are sensitive to chemical reagents, and thus the artificial manipulation of local doping and valence in correlated VO 2 nanostructures (e.g., nanowire) is important for understanding metal-insulator transition and building Mott field-effect transistors. Recent interest has been focused on the metal-insulator transition [10] and the dynamic behaviors from the monoclinic to rutile phases, [11] while selected-area control of the oxidation states of vanadium oxides (e.g., VO, V 2 O 3 , VO 2 , and V 2 O 5 ) in nanoscale has been left underexplored. [12] Here, we present selected-area chemical nanoengineering (SACNE) of VO 2 nanostructures by nonlithographic directwriting processes. In SACNE processes, artificial chemical changes were triggered by a laser without the assistance reagents and sacrificial layer. Accordingly, alternative VO 2+x patterns were fabricated in the VO 2 nanoparticles and nanobeams. SACNE will provide more opportunities to directly engineer correlated oxides at the nanoscale to achieve functional electronic devices based on metal-insulator transitions.Before initiating SACNE processes, VO 2 nanoparticles were prepared by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and an annealing process while VO 2 nanobeams were prepared by chemical vapor deposition. [13] Figure 1a,b shows the morphologies and structures of an as-prepared VO x film and VO 2 nanoparticles on SiO 2 /Si substrate. The VO x film is uniform and smooth with a thickness of ≈72 nm, while randomly distributed VO 2 particles have a radius of ≈100-200 nm after the annealing Nanoscale selected-area chemical engineering is challenging but critical to manipulate carrier transport and realize multifunctional characteristics in advanced devices. Undesired chemical contaminants might occur in conventional lithographic processes and would degrade the characteristics of chemical-sensitive vanadium oxide nanostructures. Here, a facile strategy is introduced to chemically engineer VO 2 nanostructures using a nonlithographic direct-writing process without chemical reagents and sacrificial layers. Nanoscale selected-area photooxidation promotes the formation of VO 2+x patterns in VO ...