The purpose of this article was to produce amorphous ZnO nanowires via the electrospinning process from a polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)/zinc acetate dihydrate (Zn(COOH)(2))/dimethylformamide (DMF) and ethanol (EtOH) solution. The as obtained nanofibers were calcined at temperatures ranging from 400 to 600 degrees C to remove the organic phase. The one-dimensional zinc oxide nanostructures were studied using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a transmission electron microscope (TEM) to analyse the influence of the used temperature on the morphology and structures of the obtained ceramic nano-materials. In order to examine the chemical structure of nanowires, the energy dispersive spectrometry (EDX) was used. Besides, a thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was performed to show the polymer concentration loss in a function of temperature in order to obtain pure zinc oxide nanowires. The optical property analysis was performed on the basis of UV-vis spectra of absorbance as a function of the wavelength. Using the modified Swanepoel method, which the authors proposed, and the recorded absorbance spectra determined the banded refractive index n, real n' and imaginary k part of the refractive index as a function of the wavelength, complex dielectric permeability epsilon, real and imaginary part epsilon(r) and epsilon(i) of the dielectric permeability as a function of the radiation energy of the produced ZnO nanowires. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.