In this work we have investigated field emission from self-assembled, vertically aligned, gold nanorod arrays, which were synthesized via a colloidal growth method. A field emission current density of similar to 1 mA/cm(2) was measured for these gold nanorod arrays using an anode-cathode separation of similar to 3.5 mm. The field emission investigation of these gold nanorod arrays was carried out at a base pressure of similar to 10(-8) mbar. The turn on field, defined as the electric field required to obtain a current density of 1 mu A/cm(2), is observed to be 1.9 V/mu m. Assuming a work function value of 5.3 eV, the field enhancement factor beta is estimated to be similar to 2931, which is higher than the reported values for other gold nanostructures/arrays. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.