The present work studies the effect of substrate temperature on the growth characteristics of zirconium films prepared by pulsed magnetron sputtering. Formation of alpha-phase of zirconium was observed in the temperature range 300-873 K. X-ray diffraction of Zr films revealed predominantly [0 0 1] texture. It is noticed that crystallite size increases with increasing substrate temperature. Hexagonal shaped crystallites seem to grow along the surface normal of the substrate for the films deposited at 773 K. Nanoindentation measurements showed that the hardness of the films is in the range 6-10 GPa. The scratch test indicated that the films deposited at higher substrate temperatures had excellent bonding with the substrate and no significant critical failure was noticed up to an applied load of 20 N. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.