Pulsed ablation deposition (PAD) has been used to deposit indium tin oxide (ITO) films on SiO2 substrates at room temperature using an ArF excimer laser. High optical transmission above 88% occurred in the visible region, the refractive index (2.0 at 540 nm) was observed to be very close to the one of the bulk target; the extinction coefficient was low and almost constant (6 x 10(-3)) through the visible range. An energy gap of about 3.6 eV has been calculated for the deposited films. The film thickness profilometer (FrP) and simulations using a computer code (refractor) give approximately the same result for the film thickness (approximate to 370 nm). The electrical resistivity was as low as 4 x 10(-6) Omega m. From the atomic force microscopy (AFM) observations, the films had a rough surface with average roughness; approximate to 20 nm. Pores were observed with a density of similar to 150 pores/mu m(2) and average size of 250 nm. Therefore films exhibited large surface area, which suggest applications in dye solar cells (DSC). (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.