Pure ZnO nanorods and Y-doped ZnO nanorods (ZnO∶Y) were prepared on conductive glass (FTO) substrate by two-step method. ZnO/CuInS2 and ZnO∶Y/CuInS2 photoanodes were fabricated by successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR), respectively. The crystal phase structure, micro-morphology, chemical composition, light absorption performance and solar cell efficiency of different photoanode samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometer(EDS), ultraviolet visible spectrophotometer (UV-Vis) and current density-voltage (J-V) curves and other technical means. The experimental results show that the prepared ZnO nanorods and ZnO∶Y nanorods have a hexagonal wurtzite structure. The optical band gap of the CuInS2 quantum dot-sensitized ZnO nanorod films reduce from 3.22 eV to 2.98 eV. Compared with ZnO/CuInS2 photoanode solar cell, the short-circuit current density and photoelectric conversion efficiency of ZnO∶Y/CuInS2 photoanodes solar cell increase by 6.5% and 50.4%, respectively.