Er-doped SiOx thin films were fabricated by laser ablation of a Si:Er2O3 target in He atmosphere. We have measured the photoluminescence (PL) at 1.54 mum for the films grown at different He pressures and found that the oxygen density of the grown film that strongly influences the PL intensity is highly correlated with the ambient He pressure. This manifests that oxygen density of the film can be controlled in an inert atmosphere to maximize PL intensity when we adopt pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique to deposit Er-doped SiOx thin films. Also, we have examined the temperature dependence of PL and observed that the thermal quenching is greatly reduced for the PLD-grown films. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.