In this work, ultra violet emitting properties of RF sputtered CuCl thin films were studied as a function of temperature in the region of 15-300 K. Deposition parameters were optimised to obtain good optical quality films exhibiting an intense and sharp Z3 free exciton emission (at 383 nm) with an FWHM of ∼ 74 meV at room temperature. At lower temperatures, there are two other emissions observed at 375 and 390 nm, and they are identified as Z12 and I1 exciton lines, respectively. The free exciton emission is extremely stable at room temperature and it was found to be less influenced by the exciton-phonon interaction compared to the bound exciton emission which dissociates after 40 K. The Z3 free exciton line exhibits a slight blue-shift on increasing the temperature. The temperature dependence of exciton line shift, line broadening and emission intensity are discussed in detail. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.