GaTe thin films were electrochemically grown onto the p-type Si substrate in order to produce a Schottky device. Sn was evaporated on GaTe film at 1.3 x 10(-3) Pa. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the Sn/GaTe Schottky device were studied as a function of temperature. The ideality factors and barrier heights were found to be strongly temperature-dependent. The ideality factor decreased from 5.28 to 1.29 as the temperature was increased from 75 to 300 K. The experimental values of barrier height varied from 0.21 eV to 0.76 eV in these temperature ranges. The Richardson plot of the Sn/GaTe device exhibited non-linearity at low temperatures. This behavior was attributed to the barrier inhomogeneities that prevail at the interface of the device. The dependence of the barrier height on temperature can be attributed to a double Gaussian distribution of the barrier heights. The band gap energy of the GaTe was calculated as 1.67 eV from the absorption measurements. (C) 2013 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.