ZnO thin films were grown on GaAs(0 0 1) substrate to study the feasibility of making As-doped textured ZnO films for possible optical device application using radio frequency (rf) magnetron sputtering. It was demonstrated that highly c-axis oriented ZnO crystal with uniformly doped As could be grown using this deposition technique. Crystallinity was shown to improve with higher processing temperature. Photoluminescence spectroscopy, supplemented by cathodo-lummescence imaging, showed that the ZnO films have good optical quality with strong near band emission peak at 3.3 eV and spatially homogeneous luminescence indicating possibility of producing As-doped ZnO films with good crystallinity and optical properties using the technique used herein. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.