The electronic transport properties of the wide-bandgap aluminum indium nitride (AlInN) nanorods (NRs) grown by ultrahigh-vacuum magnetron sputter epitaxy (MSE) have been studied. The conductivities of the ternary compound nanostructure locates at the value of 15 Q-1 cm -1, which is respectively one and two orders of magnitude lower than the binary GaN and InN counterparts grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The very shallow donor level/band with the activation energy at 11 + 2 meV was obtained by the temperature-dependent measurement. In addition, the photoconductivity has also been investigated. The photoconductive (PC) gain of the NRs device can reach near 2400 under a low bias at 0.1 V and the light intensity at 100W m-2 for ultraviolet response in vacuum. The power-insensitive gain and ambience-dependent photocurrent are also observed, which is attributed to the probable surfacecontrolled PC mechanism in this ternary nitride nanostructure. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.