In this work, we developed the multifractality and its formalism to investigate the surface topographies of ITO thin films prepared by electron beam deposition method for various annealing temperatures from their atomic force microscopy (AFM) images. Multifractal analysis shows that the spectrum width, Delta alpha (Delta alpha=alpha(max) -alpha(min)), of the multifractal spectra, f(alpha), can be used to characterize the surface roughness of the ITO films quantitatively. Also, it is found that the f(alpha) shapes of the as-deposited and annealed films remained left hooked (that is Delta f=f(alpha(min)) -f(alpha(max))> 0), and falls within the range 0.149 - 0.677 depending upon the annealing temperatures. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.