Low density ZnO nanorods are grown by modified chemical vapor deposition on silicon substrates using gold as a catalyst.We use high resolution photoiuminescence spectroscopy to gain the optical properties of these nanorods in large scale.The as-grown samples show sharp near-band-gap luminescence with a full width at half maximum of bound exciton peaks at about 300μeV,and the ratio of ultraviolet/yellow luminescence larger than 100.Highly spatial and spectral resolved scanning electron microscope-cathodoluminescence is performed to excite the ZnO nanorods in single rods or different positions of single rods with the vapour-solid grovth mechanism.The bottom of the nanorod has a 3.31-eV luminescence,which indicates that basal plane stacking faults are related to the defects that are created at the first stage of growth due to the misfit between ZnO and Si.