The growth of platinum (Pt) epitaxial films onto sapphire (0 0 0 1) and characterizations by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy are reported. The results show that high quality Pt films could be obtained in a wide range of substrate temperatures at around 973 K. Electrical resistance experiments on the epitaxial platinum films were carried out at temperatures ranging from 5 to 300 K, which indicates that the Pt/sapphire (0 0 0 1) is an ideal system to investigate the size effect of thin films. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.