Low-temperature epitaxy of ZnO films was carried out on both Si(00 1) and silica substrates by reactive e-beam evaporation. Growth temperature was varied between 100 degrees C and 450 degrees C. The optimal growth temperatures were between 200 degrees C and 300 degrees C for Si(00 1) substrates and 300 degrees C and 350 degrees C for silica, respectively. Structural and optical characteristics grown on both of Si and silica were compared by measurements of X-ray diffraction, Raman scattering and photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction showed the ZnO films grown both on Si(00 1) and silica substrates were all highly c-axis-oriented and their linewidth of (002) diffraction peak is significantly smaller than that measured from ZnO films deposited by magnetron sputtering. However, Raman scattering demonstrated the presence of excess zinc in the ZnO/silica structure. PLE measurements exhibited the sharp band-absorption edge and exciton absorption in the ZnO films on Si(00 1) and poor optical properties of ZnO on silica. PLE also revealed that the absorption characteristic near the band edge remarkably changed with the variation of oxygen content in the ZnO lattice while X-ray diffraction showed that the crystalline structures of ZnO films grown under different O-2 pressure almost remained unchanged. The underlying mechanism of low-temperature epitaxy of high-quality ZnO films and its applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices are discussed.