An energetic vacuum deposition system has been used to study deposition energy effects on the properties of niobium thin films on copper and sapphire substrates. The absence of a working gas avoids the gaseous inclusions commonly seen with sputtering deposition. A biased substrate holder controls the deposition energy. Transition temperature and residual resistivity ratio of the mobium thin films at several deposition energies are obtained together with surface morphology and crystal orientation measurements by atomic force microscope inspection, X-ray diffraction analysis and transmitted electron microscope (TEM) analysis. The results show that mobium, thin films on a sapphire substrate exhibit the best cryogenic properties at a deposition energy I of around 123 eV The TEM analysis revealed that epitaxial growth of film was evident when the deposition energy reached 163 eV for a sapphire substrate. Similarly, nobium thin films on copper substrates show that the film grows more oriented with higher deposition energy and the grain size reaches the scale of the film thickness at a deposition energy of around 153 eV. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.