The electrical and structural properties of contact obtained onp‐type cadmium telluride by electroless deposition of gold from a chloride solution have been investigated by means of current‐voltage measurements and ion beam analysis (Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry and Rutherford Backscattering). On high resistivity material, the ohmic behavior of these contacts has been found strongly dependent on the time of reaction between AuCl3and CdTe and can be interpreted in terms of a current flow enhanced by tunnelling through the Au–CdTe barrier. This enhancement results from the diffusion of dopant gold atoms into the semiconductor, a distance of a few tens of nanometers below the interface.