Thin films of Pt have been grown as gate metals on the oxide surface of gas sensitive field-effect devices. Both electron beam evaporation and dc magnetron sputtering has been used. The energy of the impinging Pt atoms, the substrate temperature and the thickness of the Pt film were used as parameters in this study. The influence of the growth parameters on the gas response has been investigated and compared with the properties of the films, studied by transmission electron microscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The conditions during growth of the Pt film are found to have a large impact on the properties of the device. As expected, crystallinity, morphology and the metal/substrate interfacial structure are also affected by processing parameters. Three different growth processes stand out as the most promising from gas sensor considerations, namely room temperature evaporation, sputtering at high pressures and sputtering at high temperatures. The correlation between gas responses and properties of the gas sensitive layer is discussed. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.