The electrochemical template synthesis of high aspect-ratio nickel nanorods in the track-etch membranes of polycarbonate having nominal pore size of 80, 50 and 30 nm is considered. The morphological and structural analyses have been carried out through scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction respectively. The synthesized nanorods possess FCC lattice structure with texturing for {220} planes. When excited with UV radiation pulse, the structures exhibited weak photoluminescence with exponential decay, which is attributed to the presence of some adsorbed metal hydroxide.