In this paper the growth of CdO by the MOCVD technique at atmospheric pressure has been studied in order to achieve very thin films of this material on r-sapphire substrates. The growth evolution of these films was discussed and the existence of a threshold thickness, below which island-shaped structures appear, was demonstrated. Some alternatives to reduce this threshold thickness have been proposed in the frame of the analysis of the crystal growth process. The morphology and structural properties of the films were analyzed by means of SEM and HRXRD. High-quality flat CdO samples were achieved with thicknesses up to 20 nm, which is five times thinner than the values previously reported in the literature. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.