Higher resolution and higher throughput are the relentless pursuits of lithography technologies for continued downscaling of semiconductor devices 1. While the cutting-edge lithography technique for semiconductor manufacturing has evolved into extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) 2, 3, there is still no foreseeable lithography techniques for post-EUVL 4. Electron lithography, as a candidate for post-EUVL, exhibits higher resolution (down to sub-2 nm 5-7) than that of EUVL, but encounters the main challenge of low throughput due to the trade-off between resolution and throughput resulting from the adoption of electron optics systems 8, 9. Here, we report a diffuse electron projection lithography (DEPL) by adopting a wide diffuse electron beam in air as the exposure source and patterned monolayers of Au nanoparticles as the contact mask. Without the adoption of electron optics systems, the resolution and throughput of DEPL are decoupled and can be optimized independently. A minimum feature size of 4 nm and a throughput of 15 4-inch wafers per hour have been demonstrated by DEPL, with a potential throughput up to 532 12-inch wafers per hour. The outstanding features of high resolution, high throughput, and freedom from electron optics and ultrahigh vacuum systems make DEPL a promising and cost-effective lithography technique for post-EUVL.