The structural and infrared properties of the highly (00.2) oriented ZnO film, randomly grown Au-catalyzed ZnO nanowires (NWs) and vertically aligned self-catalyzed ZnO NWs were compared. In the XRD analysis, (0 0 2) diffraction intensity of self-catalyzed ZnO NWs was enhanced mainly attributed to the preferential growth of NWs in [0 0 0 1] as compared to the ZnO film and the randomly grown Au-catalyzed ZnO NWs. The high UV-to-green emission ratio of self-catalyzed ZnO NWs in room temperature PL measurement indicates that they had a better crystal quality as compared to Au-catalyzed ZnO NWs and ZnO film. Infrared spectroscopy has been used to characterize these films and nanowires too. The phonon peak 407 cm(-1) which related to the transverse optical (TO) vibrations perpendicular to the optical axis was observed in the IR reflectivity measurements on the highly c-oriented ZnO film. The IR peaks that appeared in the 550-580 cm(-1) of the spectra of the specimens could be assigned to the ZnO NWs as it was not observed in the ZnO film. These peaks were observed in the 550-580 cm(-1) region in both s- and p-polarized light for the randomly grown Au-catalyzed ZnO NWs. In contrast, the IR peak at 580 cm(-1) was clearly shown in p-polarized light but not in the s-polarized light for vertically aligned ZnO NWs. This indicated that the vibration was polarized along the vertically aligned ZnO NWs. The (00.2) orientation of the ZnO specimens could be identified by comparing the p- and s-polarized IR spectra. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.