A detailed investigation about the dependence of film orientation on deposition temperature and ambient oxygen pressure has been carried out for CeO2 films on Si(1 0 0) substrates using pulsed laser deposition. It has been found that the CeO2 film orientation varies with increasing oxygen pressure at 750 degrees C deposition temperature. In addition, the recovery of preferential orientation of CeO2 films grown at 20 Pa ambient oxygen pressure with increasing deposition temperature has also been found for the first time. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements confirm that stoichiometric CeO2 films can be grown at lower oxygen pressure(similar to 5 x 10(-3) Pa). HRTEM result also indicates that the CeO2 films grown at low oxygen pressure are of high crystallinity. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.