In this research, a do thermal plasma reactor was used to produce ZnO nanorods with a diameter of about 30 nm and a length of 100-200 nm. In the photocatalytic study, visible light absorption of the ZnO nanorods was achieved by doping up to a few thousands ppm of nitrogen. The nitrogen-doped ZnO nanorods under the visible light radiation exhibited excellent antimicrobial ability. UV-visible spectroscopy of the N-doped ZnO nanorods annealed in a reductive atmosphere revealed a strong absorption of near-IR light starting at around 1 Am, which is attributed to the effect of plasmon resonance. Room-temperature photoluminescence spectroscopy of the N-doped ZnO nanorods showed an UV emission peak at 380 nm, a green emission peak at 520 nm, and a weak near-IR emission peak at 760 nm. The UV emission was assigned to the near band-edge emission, while the green and the near-IR emissions corresponded to the deep-level emission from different defects. In addition, we found that photoluminescent characteristic of the ZnO nanorods depends strongly on the synthesis and annealing atmospheres. Finally, discrete UV lasing modes were observed in the random-packed ZnO nanorods at room temperature. This may be attributed to recurrent light scattering that provides coherent feedback for lasing. (c) 2006 American Vacuum Society.