Zinc oxide has been used as transparent and conducting oxide film in solar cells and electrochromic devices. In this work, ZnO thin films have been deposited by reactive electron beam evaporation technique with argon-oxygen plasma assistance. The films have been deposited on glass substrate. After the deposition, the films were annealed at 550ºC during 2 hours in an oxidant atmosphere to improve its optical and electrical properties. The films were characterized by atomic force microscopy, UV/VIS/NIR spectroscopy, electrical resistivity and X-ray diffraction. The films are adherent and present high roughness, low transmittance and low crystallinity. After the thermo-chemical treatment there was an increase in optical transmittance, in crystallinity and a decrease of the absorption coefficient in the visible spectral region and of the electrical resistivity. Furthermore, the results of atomic force microscopy and DRX indicate that this treatment promotes a significant change of the surface texture and of the grain size.
