We report on the results of a recent study on the deposition of [100] textured MgO films on fused quartz substrates by using the metalorganic chemical vapor deposition technique. Magnesium &bgr;‐diketonate was used as the metal source and the growth rate of the film was about 0.4 &mgr;m/h at 740 °C in a horizontal warm wall reactor. X‐ray diffraction experiments provided evidence that the MgO films on fused quartz were fully textured with [100] orientation perpendicular to the substrate surface. The films had a very smooth surface morphology and optical transparency with an index of refraction of 1.71.