The growth and optical properties of self-assembled ZnO nanorods grown on Si(111) substrate by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE) were studied. By controlling the Zn/O flux ratio, the growth of ZnO nanorods on Si(111) substrate without catalyst has been achieved. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows the ZnO nanorods with various density and diameter could be controlled. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements exhibit nice optical properties. The sharp near band edge PL emission with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of about 17 meV indicates that the ZnO nanorods could be used as the high efficient photonic devices. Crown Copyright (c) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.