We investigated the electrical and the optical properties of polar and nonpolar ZnO films grown on sapphire substrates with different crystallographic planes. High resolution X-ray results revealed that polar c-plane (0001), nonpolarm-plane (10-10) and a-plane (11-20) ZnO thin films were grown on c-plane, m- and r-sapphire substrates by atomic layer deposition, respectively. Compared with the c-plane ZnO film, nonpolar m-plane and a-plane ZnO films showed smaller surface roughness and anisotropic surface structures. Regardless of ZnO crystal planes, room temperature photoluminescence spectra represented two emissions which consisted of the near bandedge (similar to 380 nm) and the deep level emission (similar to 500 nm). The a-plane ZnO films represented better optical and electrical properties than c-plane ZnO, while m-plane ZnO films exhibited poorer optical and electrical properties than c-plane ZnO. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.