We report low-temperature near-field spectroscopy of isolated ZnO / ZnMgO single-quantum-well structures ͑SQWs͒ on the end of ZnO nanorod to define their potential for nanophotonics. First, absorption spectra of isolated ZnO / ZnMgO nanorod SQWs with the Stokes shift as small as 3 meV and very sharp photoluminescent peaks indicate that the nanorod SQWs are of very high optical quality. Furthermore, we performed polarization spectroscopy of isolated ZnO SQWs, and observed valence-band anisotropy of ZnO SQWs in photoluminescence spectra directly. Since the exciton in a quantum structure is an ideal two-level system with long coherence times, our results provide criteria for designing nanophotonic devices. © 2005 American Institute of Physics. ͓DOI: 10.1063/1.1990247͔ ZnO nanocrystallites are a promising material for realizing nanometer-scale photonic devices, 1 i.e., nanophotonic devices, at room temperature, owing to their large exciton binding energy 2-4 and large oscillator strength. 5 Furthermore, the recent demonstration of semiconductor nanorod quantumwell structures enables us to fabricate nanometer-scale electronic and photonic devices on single nanorods. [6][7][8][9] Recently, ZnO / ZnMgO nanorod heterostructures were fabricated and the quantum confinement effect even from the singlequantum-well structures ͑SQWs͒ was observed. 10 Near-field spectroscopy has made a remarkable contribution to investigations of the optical properties in nanocrystallite, 11 and has resulted in the observation of nanometer-scale optical images, such as the local density of exciton states. 12 However, reports on semiconductor quantum structure are limited to naturally formed quantum dots ͑QDs͒. 12-14 Here we report low-temperature near-field spectroscopy of artificially fabricated ZnO SQWs on the end of a ZnO nanorod.ZnO / ZnMgO SQWs were fabricated on the ends of ZnO stems with a mean diameter of 40 nm and a length of 1 m using catalyst-free metalorganic vapor phase epitxy, in which the ZnO nanorods were grown vertically from a sapphire ͑0001͒ substrate in the c orientation. 10,15 The Mg concentration in the ZnMgO layers averaged 20 at. %. Two samples were prepared for this study: their ZnO well layer thickness L w , were 2.5 and 3.75 nm, while the thicknesses of the ZnMgO bottom and top barrier layers in the SQWs were fixed at 60 and 18 nm, respectively. After growing the ZnO / ZnMgO nanorod SQWs, they were dispersed so that they were laid down on a flat sapphire substrate to isolate them from each other ͓Fig. 1͑a͔͒.The far-field photoluminescence ͑PL͒ spectra were obtained using a He-Cd laser ͑ = 325 nm͒ before dispersion of the ZnO / ZnMgO nanorod SQWs. The emission signal was collected with the acromatic lens ͑f =50 mm͒. To confirm that the optical qualities of individual ZnO / ZnMgO SQWs were sufficiently high, we used a collection-mode near-field optical microscope ͑NOM͒ using a He-Cd laser ͑ = 325 nm͒ for excitation, and a UV fiber probe with an aperture diameter of 30 nm. The excitation source was focused on a nanorod ...