In this study, we present a facile route to fabricate GaN nanorods by employing the nanosphere lithography (NSL) technique. Compared to previous approaches, it was demonstrated that arrays of silica (SiO2) nanospheres can be effectively used as etching masks for the inductively coupled plasma etching process. By adjusting the etching conditions between SiO2 nanospheres and GaN substrates, well-defined nanorods, which were as long as a few microns with controllable diameters, were successfully fabricated. This method is much simpler than any other technique currently being used, and can be generally applied to fabricate various types of nanorods. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.