Thin film multilayers of Al2O3 / ZrO2 have been deposited on quartz and AISI 440C steel substrates at room temperature by sol-gel dip coating technique followed by annealing at different temperatures ranging from 200°C to 800°C for 5h. Prior to annealing the deposited films have been exposed 10 min to ultraviolet radiation (248 nm wavelength) and microwave (2.45 MHz at 800 W power) respectively. Unlike conventional annealing methods, microwave heating is generally quite faster, simpler, and very energy efficient. The lower temperature and shorter time with microwave irradiation might be ascribed to the activating and facilitating effect of microwave on solid phase diffusion. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyser techniques have been employed to characterize structural, morphological and elemental composition of the thin films. Adhesion strength failure measurements on films have shown critical loads up to 35 N. Nanohardness indentation tests of the films exposed to microwave have shown hardness of 10 GPa with elastic modulus of 85 GPa compared to the annealed films hardness of 4.5 GPa with elastic modulus 57 GPa.