Production of microscopic and nanoscopic coils, by rolling up conductor layers during the removal of auxiliary layers from a substrate. By removing the auxiliary layer from the substrate, for example by virtue of a sacrificial layer situated in between being selectively etched away, the auxiliary layer folds back and, if appropriate, automatically rolls up upon continuation of the removal operation and a conductor track concomitantly rolls up in the process. The auxiliary layer may be formed by two layers having different lattice constants. It is possible to produce microcoils, microtransformers, or microcapacitors constructed from said microcoils, with diameters in the nanometers or micrometers range.