We have grown CdTe films directly on hydrogen-terminated Si(1 1 1) without any pre-heat treatment by hot-wall epitaxy. The grown films were evaluated by X-ray diffraction to investigate in detail the crystallographic alignment between the grown CdTc and the Si substrate. The 0-20 scans of X-ray diffraction show that CdTe films grow along [1 1 1] normal to the surface of the Si(1 1 1) substrate. Furthermore, we found that the CdTe films have a double domain structure with a rotation of 180degrees rotation through the measurements of X-ray pole figures and Phi scans from the {2 2 0} reflection planes. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.