Nano-structured Cu2O/ZnO nanorod (NR) heterojunction solar cells fabricated on indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass are studied. Substrate film and NR density have a strong influence on the preferred growth of the Cu2O film. The X-ray diffractometer (XRD) analysis results show that highly (2 0 0)-preferred Cu2O film was formed when plating on plain ITO substrate. However, a highly (1 1 1)-preferred Cu2O film was obtained when plating on sparse ZnO NRs. SEM, TEM and XRD studies on sparse NR samples indicate that the Cu2O nano-crystallites mostly initiate its nucleation on the peripheral surfaces of the ZnO NRs, and are also highly (1 1 1)-oriented. Solar cells with ZnO NRs yielded much higher efficiency than those without. In addition, ZnO NRs plated on a ZnO-coated ITO glass significantly improve the shunt resistance and open-circuit voltage (V-oc) of the devices, with consistently much higher efficiency obtained than when ZnO NRs are directly plated on ITO film. However, longer NRs do not improve the efficiency due to low short-circuit current (J(sc)) and slightly higher series resistance. The best conversion efficiency of 0.56% was obtained from a Cu2O/ZnO NRs heterojunction solar cell fabricated on a 80 nm ZnO-coated ITO glass with V-oc = 0.514 V, J(sc) = 2.64 mA/cm(2) and 41.5% fill factor. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.