Cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin films were grown on sapphire c-face single-crystal substrates by vacuum evaporation. Prior to growing the CdTe thin films, conducting thin films of Ni, Mo, Ti and titanium nitride (TiN) were grown on the sapphire substrates. The crystallinities and photoluminescence (PL) properties of the CdTe thin films grown on the various conducting thin films were investigated and they were compared with those of CdTe thin films grown directly on sapphire substrates without a conducting thin film. CdTe thin films with relatively high crystallinities were obtained when Ti and TiN were used as the conducting thin film. Therefore, the PL properties of the CdTe thin films on such conducting thin films were not inferior to those of the CdTe thin film grown directly on the sapphire substrate. The effect of the Cd and Te supply ratio on the properties of the CdTe thin films was also investigated. The CdTe thin films had much higher crystallinities when they were grown in Te-rich conditions than in Cd-rich conditions. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.