Under argon- and oxygen-mixed atmosphere, the vapor liquid-solid method was introduced to fabricate the ZnO nanowires at 700-1000 degreesC. As grown oil Au-coated Si substrate, the single-crystalline Zno one-dimensional structure was obtained. From XRD patterns, the growth orientation of nanowires was <002> along the c-axis. Two emission bands were observed in PL spectra. one is UV emission at similar to380 nm and the other is a green emission at similar to500 nm. The oxygen vacancies were assigned to result in green emission and influenced the vibration energy. By means of annealing at oxygen atmosphere, the vacancies and residual stress were eliminated effectively. This phenomenon was evidenced by XRD patterns and Raman spectrum. Through this easy, rapid and low-cost method, the high-quality ZnO nanowires were obtained. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.