High quality undoped ZnO nanorods have been synthesized at 850 degrees C by vapor-solid (VS) technique without a catalyst through a low cost process on silicon substrates. Then, ZnO nanorods have been characterized by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetectors with palladium (Pd) as contact electrodes have been successfully constructed for ultraviolet (UV) detection. Under dark and UV illumination, the load resistance of the Pd/ZnO junction was found to be 80.4 k Omega, and 23.5 k Omega referring to the maximum allowed bias voltage; the barrier height was estimated to be about 0.8 eV, and 0.76 eV, at 5 V applied bias voltage, respectively. It was found that the maximum responsivity of the Pd/ZnO MSM photodetector was 0.106 A/W at 300 nm which corresponds to a quantum efficiency of 43.8% at 5 V applied bias voltage. The transient photoresponse of the fabricated device is reported under different applied biases at 1 V, 3 V, and 5 V. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.