ZnO nanorods were grown on a variety of substrates such as Si, SiO(2)/Si and sapphire in a large-area pulsed laser deposition chamber designed for sensor device fabrication. Processing conditions were optimized to grow ZnO nanorods with or without seed layers. Au, Cr and BaSrTiO(3) (BST) seed layers were investigated to compare their effects on the diameter and orientation of ZnO nanorods. ZnO nanorods were observed to align better when grown on sapphire, Cr or BST seed layers as compared to Au or Si layers. The highest quality nanorods were those grown on BST seed layers, as shown by 4 K photoluminescence donor-bound-exciton linewidths of only 0.5 meV.