Nanostructured zinc oxide thin films formed by partially oriented hexagonal columns with dimensions of about 100 nm x 300 nm have been prepared by cathodic electrodeposition on conducting glass substrates. After subsequent thermal annealing in air at different temperatures (100-500 degrees C), structural information on the films was obtained by means of nonresonant Raman spectroscopy. Increasing the annealing temperature leads to a higher degree of crystallinity. The photoluminescence activity of the samples tat low temperature) also improves for increasing annealing temperatures in two ways: increasing the intensity of the near-band edge emission and decreasing the width of the excitonic peak. No emission band in the visible is detected, which attests the high quality of the ZnO nanocolumnar films. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.