Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were successfully deposited by RF magnetron sputtering method on quartz substrate.High purity ZnO-Al₂O₃(purity:99.95%,Al₂O₃:2wt.%) targ et was used as source material.The field emission and electrical conduction characteristics of the AZO films are studied ,and the relationship between the field emission characteristics and the annealing temperature of AZO films is analyzed .The effects of different annealing temperatures on the morphology,electrical conductivity and field emission proper ties of AZO thin films are discussed in detail.The results of atom force microscope (AFM) and X-raydiffraction (XRD) re sults show that all samples are polycrystalline, hexagonal wurtzite structure with oriention in the (002) crystallographic direction,while the surface roughness an d crystallinity of AZO thin films are increased with rising annealing temperature.Meanwhile,the field emission p roperties are improved by annealing at different temperatures.As for the AZO films deposited at the annealing temperatu re of 300℃,the surface roughness is the largest and the field emission characteristics are the best,whose turn-on field is as low as 2.8V/μm.The uniform and stable light emission and excellent conductivity are obtained,where the light lumin ance reaches 650cd/m^2and the resistivity is 5.42×10－4 Ω·cm.