Sodium phosphate glass systems with AgCl as dopant (0 and 15 mol%) have been synthesized by melt-quenching technique. The glasses in bulk form were characterized by X-ray diffraction, FT-IR spectroscopy and their thermal and electrical properties were investigated. These glasses were deposited on glass substrates by thermal evaporation method in thin film form and annealed at 600 °C. The influence of deposition in thin film form and annealing on structure and optical properties (transmittance, absorbance and optical gap) have showed that both doped and undoped as-deposited glass films have a porous, granular structure and considerable grain coarsening and densification occur upon annealing at 600 °C. The optical transmittance of the film is found to decrease in visible region as a function of annealing and doping. The annealed 15 mol% doped film shows a prominent absorbance peak at 430 nm, which is ascribed to Ag+(5s) ← O(n) electronic transitions. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.