A two step method, with a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches, was developed for the fabrication of ZnO based hierarchical structures with nanorods on microcraters. A layer of well c-axis aligned, transparent, conductive ZnO thin film was deposited by pulsed DC sputtering on a Corning glass substrate. The microcraters were created with anisotropic etching on the as-deposited ZnO thin film. ZnO nanorods were then synthesized onto the etched film by means of metal organic chemical vapor deposition. The resulting hierarchical film exhibits a high water contact angle (>160 degrees) with a low contact angle hysteresis (2) and low reflection over a wide spectral range. This biomimetic material may find potential applications in many industrial fields, e.g., self-cleaning, solar cells, displays. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.