Thin amorphous chalcogenide films from the GeSex (x= 1-5), (GeSe4)(100-y)Ga-y and (GeSe5)(100-y), Ga(Tl, B)(y) (y=5, 10, 15, 20) systems have been prepared by thermal evaporation and characterized with respect to their internal stress using a cantilever technique. The correlations between the stress, the composition and the structure of the films were investigated. The obtained results were related with some structural and mechanical parameters of the glasses like mean coordination number, number of constrains per atom, density, compactness, microhardness and Young's modulus. For all investigated chalcogenide films a stress relaxation with the time was observed as a result of spontaneous structural rearrangements. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.