ZnO thin films were epitaxially grown on sapphire (0 0 0 1) substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. ZnO thin films were then annealed at different temperatures in air and in various atmospheres at 800 degrees C, respectively. The effect of the annealing temperature and annealing atmosphere on the structure and optical properties of ZnO thin films are investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), photoluminescence (PL). A strong (0 0 2) diffraction peak of all ZnO thin films shows a polycrystalline hexagonal wurtzite structure and high preferential c-axis orientation. XRD and AFM results reveal that the better structural quality, relatively smaller tensile stress, smooth, uniform of ZnO thin films were obtained when annealed at 800 degrees C in N-2. Room temperature PL spectrum can be divided into the UV emission and the Visible broad band emission. The UV emission can be attributed to the near band edge emission (NBE) and the Visible broad band emission can be ascribed to the deep level emissions (DLE). By analyzing our experimental results, we recommend that the deep-level emission correspond to oxygen vacancy (V-O) and interstitial oxygen (O-i). The biggest ratio of the PL intensity of UV emission to that of visible emission (I-NBE/I-DLE) is observed from ZnO thin films annealed at 800 degrees C in N-2. Therefore, we suggest that annealing temperature of 800 degrees C and annealing atmosphere of N-2 are the most suitable annealing conditions for obtaining high quality ZnO thin films with good luminescence performance. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.