A new strategy has been successfully designed for the first time to synthesize ZnO nanorod arrays on a zinc surface by employing a novel NaCl solution corrosion-based approach. The natural oxidation of zinc metal by naturally dissolved oxygen in water is very slow due to the surface oxide layer. However, in the presence of NaCl solution, this spontaneous oxidation reaction can be accelerated drastically, and thus ZnO nanorod arrays can readily grow along the [001] direction on the surface of the zinc foil. In particular, this simple synthetic strategy only requires NaCl solution and zinc foil, which enables us to generate, at large scale, low cost, and moderate temperature, advanced thin films. Photo luminescence (PL) spectrum reveals that our obtained ZnO nanorods have negligible oxygen vacancies. By the way, a two-dimensional pattern of flower-like ZnO nanosheets on Zn by formamide-induced sequential nucleation and growth on zinc foil substrate has also been demonstrated. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.