[en] Radio-frequency (RF) sputtered deposition combined with sol-gel spin coating has been applied to achieve a high-quality, c-axis-oriented ZnO film. The deposited ZnO films show only a c-axisoriented ZnO (002) peak. The morphology, structure, and residual stress of the deposited ZnO films are found to depend strongly on the concentration of the precursor. As the concentration of the precursor is increased from 0.1-M to 0.6-M, the residual stress of the ZnO films changes from a compressive (−415 MPa) to a mild tensile (+90 MPa) mode. The deposited ZnO film interestingly shows facets when the concentration of the precursor is 0.6-M. We suggest that the residual stress in sputter-deposited ZnO films can be controlled by using the precursor concentration. This technique is believed to have been used for the first time, and can be applied to control the uniformity during micro speaker fabrication.