The zinc oxide(ZnO) nanowires were deposited on Si(001) substrates by thermal chemical vapour deposition without any catalysts. SEM data suggested that the grown nanostructures were the well-aligned ZnO single crystals with preferential orientation. Back-gate ZnO nanowire field effect transistors(FET) were successfully fabricated using a photolithography process. The fabricated nanowire FET exhibits good contact between the ZnO nonowire and Au metal electrodes. Based on I-V characteristics it was found out that the ZnO nanowire revealed a characteristic of n-type field effect transistor. The drain current increases with increasing drain voltage, and the slopes of the $I_{ds}-V_{ds}$ curves are dependent on the gate voltage.