Zinc oxide films were deposited on Si (111) substrates by radio-frequency (rf)sputtering at a room temperature and post annealed in Na, air, and $H_2O$ ambient at temperatures between $800{circ}C$ for 2 hrs. The properties were investigated by atomic force microscope (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and photoluminescence (PL). Our experiments demonstrated that ZnO films have the better crystal quality for post thermal annealing and especially in $H_2O$ ambient. Even though thermal annealing reduced deep level emission somewhat, for further getting rid off deep level emission, oxygen contents should be adjusted. In our results, $H_2O$ ambient gave the best structural and optical properties.