Metal oxides nanostructures can be fabricated on substrates by thermal oxidation approach or by glancing angle deposition. The nanostructures synthesized by thermal oxidation are normally single crystalline and exhibited some interesting properties. For example, vanadium oxide nanostructures exhibited very good photocatalytic activity, tungsten oxide nanostructures exhibited excellent field emission properties. By GLAD, the morphology of the nanostructures can be well controlled which is important for applications such as antireflection coatings.