CdTe thin film was grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition on cube-textured Ni substrate. The microstructures of the CdTe film and Ni substrate were studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) lattice imaging in cross sectional. The orientational relationships of multiple hetereoepitaxial domains in the CdTe film were examined by TEM diffraction. The observed epitaxy is [111](CdTe)//[001](Ni). The adjacent domains in CdTe film have a 30 degrees rotation with respect to each other as inferred by the observed different diffraction patterns obtained from different zone axes. The high resolution lattice imaging shows that lamellar twins dominate within each domain. Our results are compared with CdTe(111) film epitaxially grown on Si(001) substrate by molecular beam epitaxy reported in the literature. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.