A novel bat-like ZnO nanostructure was synthesized on the silicon substrate by simple ther- mal evaporation of zinc powders without any catalyst. Each bat-like nanorod （＂nanobat＂） is composed of a hexagonal head, a continuous neck and a thin handle. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction results reveal the single-crystalline feature and the growing direction along [0001] of the nanobat. The vapor- solid mechanism was found suitable to explain the growth process of the nanobat and a schematic model was proposed in detail based on the experimental results.
