Amorphous zinc-tin oxide (a-ZTO) films are fabricated using a combustion solution process. Utilization of a-ZTO films as the novel active layers, ultraviolet (UV) and ethanol sensors are prepared for the first time. The sensor performances are strongly related to the film resistance, which is determinated by the surface O-2(-) formed by O-2 + e = O-2(-) during UV and ethanol detections. During UV exposure, the resistivity of a-ZTO films decreases from 6.50 x 10(5) Omega cm to 56.85 Omega cm, which are very sensitive towards UV (365 nm) light and the photodetectors own a sensitivity value of 650 from 0 to 30 V. While for ethanol gas, the detection regions can be in a wide range from 20 ppm to 500 ppm. The gas response can achieve a value of 31.18 at 500 ppm ethanol and good response/recovery speed (6s and 3 s), which can be comparable with that of the common used nanomaterials. The novel a-ZTO film based UV and gas sensors are very promising researches for future UV and gas sensor applications. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.