ZnO nanowires with different arsenic concentration were grown on Si (100) substrates by chemical vapor deposition method without using catalyst. Zn/GaAs mixed powders were used as Zn and As source, respectively. Oxygen was used as oxidant. The images of scanning electron microscope show that the arsenic-doped ZnO nanowires with preferred c-axial orientation were obtained, which is in well accordance with the X-ray diffraction analysis. The arsenic related acceptor emission was observed in the photoluminescence spectra at 11 K for all arsenic-doped ZnO samples. This method for the preparation of arsenic-doped ZnO nanowires may open the way to realize the ZnO nanowires based light-emitting diode and laser diode. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.