This paper documents the growth of single crystal Ti:sapphire thin films, typically 10 mu m thick, on undoped sapphire substrates using pulsed laser deposition from a Ti:sapphire single crystal target with a doping level of 0.1 wt.% Ti2O3. These thin films are shown to have very high crystal quality using ion beam channelling and X-ray diffraction techniques. The degree of titanium incorporation into the films is investigated using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and particle induced X-ray emission. These techniques show that levels of up to 0.08 wt.% Ti2O3 are present in the deposited layers.