Zinc oxide microcrystals grown at atmospheric pressure by the laser assisted flow deposition method were characterized by morphological, structural and optical techniques. A set of samples with 0, 0.8, 2.0, 3.0 and 5.0 mol% nominal AgNO3 content were studied in order to analyse the influence of silver amount on the near band edge recombination. A detailed study of the samples' photoluminescence evidence that at room temperature the free exciton recombination occurs at similar to 3.334 eV for crystals grown in the presence of silver instead of the broad peak observed at similar to 3.28 eV for the undoped ones. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.