[en] We have investigated the effect of excimer laser annealing on the chemical bonding, electrical, and optical properties of ZnO nanowires. We demonstrate that after laser annealing on the ZnO nanowire field effect transistors, the on-current increases and the threshold voltage shifts in the negative gate bias direction. These electrical results are attributed to the increase of oxygen vacancies as n-type dopants after laser annealing, consistent with the shifts towards higher binding energies of Zn 2p and O 1s in the x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis of as-grown nanowires and laser-annealed ZnO nanowires.