Epitaxial films of gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) have been deposited on sapphire (0 0 0 1) substrates by pulsed laser deposition method. X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence (PL) and spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) were used to characterize the films. It was found that the epitaxial growth of GZO films could be obtained for a substrate temperature at 400degreesC and the high quality epitaxial films were obtained at 500degreesC. The PL spectra of epitaxial GZO films showed a near band edge (NBE) emission peak and a broad orange deep-level emission peak. The NBE emission had a blue shift while the deep-level emission shifted to lower energy comparing with those of pure ZnO films. The refractive indices were obtained from the fitting of the SE data by Sellmeier dispersion relation. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.