The orientation of the nano-columnar ZnO films grown on sapphire using the technique of metal-organic chemical vapor deposition （MOCVD） exhibits deviation because of the mismatch between the crystal lattices of the films and the sapphire substrate. A high-throughout X-ray diffraction method was employed to determine the crystal orientation of the ZnO films at a time scale of the order of minutes based on the general area detection diffraction system （GADDS）. This rapid, effective, and ready method, adapted for characterizing the orientation of the nano-columnar crystals is used to directly explain the results of observation of the X-ray diffraction images, by the measurements of the orientations of the crystal columns of the ZnO films along c-axis and in parallel to ab plane.
ZnO（002） films with different thicknesses ranging from 7 to 300 nm were grown on sapphire（006） substrates via metal-organic chemical vapor deposition （MOCVD）. The two-dimensional（2D） planar layer and the three-dimensional（3D） island layer were studied by using of X-ray diffraction（XRD） rocking curves and atomic force microscopy （AFM）. The room temperature photoluminescence （PL） spectra show a blue shift of the peak positions of the uhraviolet（UV） emission with increasing film thickness. The blue shift is remarkably high（393-380 nm） when an increase in film thickness（7-15 nm） is accompanied by the change of structure from a 2D planar layer to a 3D island layer. The PL spectra at 77 K also indicate that there are different transition mechanisms in the film thickness from a 2D planar layer to a 3D island layer near the 2D layer region.
