The ZnO nanorods have been prepared on lime-glass substrate by doping Li+ and/or Mg2+ using a sol-gel method. The results show that the degree of C-orientation of Li/Mg doped ZnO nanorods is much high compared with that of Li doped and undoped ones. The individual nanorod exhibits an asymmetric hexagonal morphology with uniform diameter (50-80 nm) along its length (300 nm), and few abnormal ZnO rods (with about 3 mu m length) can be observed on the surface in the SEM images. The growth mechanism of ZnO nanorods has also been discussed. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.