This paper presents high quality high-k Al 2O 3 dielectric films deposited by reactive sputtering technique with pulsed-DC (p-DC) power supply source. Process parameters are optimized to obtain Al 2O 3 dielectric film with high effective breakdown field (EBD of 18.07 MV/cm and dielectric constant (k) of 8.15 with an equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) of 8.59 nm, suitable for inter-poly dielectric (IPD) of floating gate flash memory applications. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurement is performed for films deposited with different gas flow ratios and it is observed that the film stoichiometry can be changed by varying the gas flow ratio. A low surface roughness of 3.2 Å is observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurement on these films. Al 2O 3 films deposited at high power are found to be interesting for surface passivation of p-type silicon for solar cell applications.© 2012 American Scientific Publishers.