A method of controlling a preferred orientation of ZnO thin films grown by Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is discussed. The results for ALD films grown at low temperature with zinc acetate as a zinc precursor are presented. We demonstrate that to control a preferential growth mode one has to correlate growth temperature and separation time (so-called purging time) between pulses of precursors. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.