The effects of experimental parameters such as substrate temperature, laser intensity and pressure of oxygen on the structural properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) films using femtosecond laser deposition were studied in this paper. The c-axis-oriented ZnO films were obtained under the optimized conditions with the temperature of substrate and the pressure of oxygen being 80 degrees C and 1 x 10(-3) Pa, respectively. The structural properties were analyzed by X-ray diffraction and surface morphology of films was analyzed by field-emission scanning electron microscopy, and the results showed that the prepared films are of fine grains (30-50 nm) and of even density. Furthermore, the optical transmissivity of annealed ZnO films were also studied in the range from 200 to 900 nm. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.