Nanometric gallium-nitride rods were grown on a silicon (1 1 1) substrate through a chemical vapor deposition process with gold particles as the catalyst. Randomly distributed gallium-nitride rods of 20–200 nm in diameter and of various densities and lengths were formed under different deposition conditions. Characterization analyses, such as scanning electron microscopy and optical reflection spectroscopy, have been carried out on samples containing gallium-nitride rods different in size, shape, length and density. While the scanning electron microscopy shows directly the images of the sample surfaces, the optical spectroscopy provides a nondestructive evaluation of the sample surfaces, especially helpful for checking the uniformity of the samples.