Polycrystalline CdTe films have been deposited onto glass substrates at 373 K by vacuum evaporation technique. The transmittance and reflectance have been measured at normal and near normal incidence, respectively, in the spectral range 200-2500 nm. The dependence of absorption coefficient, a on the photon energy have been determined. Analysis of the result showed that for CdTe films of different thicknesses, direct transition occurs with band gap energies in the range 1.45-1.52 eV. Refractive indices and extinction coefficients have been evaluated in the above spectral range. The XRD analysis confirmed that CdTe films are polycrystalline having hexagonal structure. The lattice parameters of thin films are almost matching with the JCPDS 82-0474 data for cadmium telluride. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.