Epitaxial films of TiO2 with rutile structure on sapphire and anatase structure on SrTiO3 were simultaneously grown by RF helicon magnetron sputtering of a TiO2 target in Ar atmosphere. X-ray diffraction using theta - 2theta scan and pole figure plots confirmed the epitaxial relationship, which were rutile (1 0 1)parallel tosapphire (1 10), (0 1 0)(f)parallel to(0 0 1)(s), and anatase (0 0 1)parallel toSrTiO(3)(0 0 1), (10 0)(f)parallel to(1 0 0)(s), where suffix f and s stand for the film and substrate, respectively. Moreover, observation by transmission electron microscopy identified the epitaxial film growth of single crystalline anatase and rutile structure with slight lattice distortion compared with bulk. The lattice constants of a and b, which were calculated from electron diffraction spots and lattice image in TEM of the films were contracted while that of c being expanded. According to the results of spectroscopic ellipsometry, the films show very high refractive indices (n) at the designated wavelength range in comparison with the past reports on TiO2 thin films. Although there are no bulk references in the anatase case, the values n of the rutile film are comparable to the bulk in the data-book. Such high refractive indices of the films indicate the compact texture of the epitaxial films fabricated by helicon sputtering. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.