A simple lamp heater design and use of permanent magnets to mount the heater to a commercial sputter deposition system are reported. The heater was applied to anneal a TiO2 thin film sample up to 350 degreesC. The annealing effect was evaluated using spectroscopic ellipsometry. The results were compared with that of another TiO2 sample grown under identical conditions but without aftergrowth annealing. The TiO2 samples were made by using reactive sputtering on a pure Ti target.