The use of intrinsic instabilities in growth processes is currently actively explored as a promising pathway to reach a lateral patterning of surfaces at the nanometerscale. The origin of these instabilities is traced back to the presence of an excess energy barrier for adatom diffusion over descending steps, the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier. Structural patterns can be created either by spontaneous self-organization of the material deposited, or by guided growth on prestructured substrates. The deposition of Cu on singular and vicinal Cu surfaces illustrates this approach, using Helium Atom Scattering (HAS), Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and Low Energy Electron Microscopy (LEEM) as structural probes. Surprisingly, the interaction of green laser light with these surfaces leads as well to atomic scale restructuring. @FootnoteText@ I like to acknowledge the contributions of F. Charra, L. Douillard, R. Gerlach, and T. Maroutian at various stages of this project.