We investigate Ag-doped ZnO (SZO) nanostructures grown by a vapor-liquid-solid mechanism in a hot-walled pulsed laser deposition (HW-PLD) that can control the kinetic energy of the laser-ablated particles from a target. After optimizing the process conditions for nanowire (NW) formation, the transition of the morphology from the NW to nanohorn (NH) is observed. The NH morphologies are analyzed in both cases of pure ZnO and SZO to find that the Ag-doping provides the morphological changes of the nanostructures with the doping-induced stress in the nanocrystals. Additional morphology degradations are studied with respect to the target-substrate (T-S) distance illustrating the effect of the kinetic energy and flux changes of the source particles on the nanoshaping. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.