Abstract: Gold can be selectively deposited onto a catalytically-activated region on a surface of a workpiece in the presence of a catalytically-inactive region on the surface by a chemical vapor deposition method. The method involves placing the workpiece in a vacuum chamber and evacuating the vacuum chamber to a base pressure equal to or less than a catalyst-activity-preserving upper pressure limit to eliminate effectively gaseous catalyst-deactivating contaminants from the chamber. The surface composition of at least one region of a target surface of the workpiece is altered to produce a catalytically-activated region on the target surface. At least one region of the target surface disjoint from the catalytically-activated region is a catalytically-inactive region. A gaseous alkylated (trialkylphosphine)gold compound is introduced into the vacuum chamber to expose the target surface of the workpiece to the compound.