We report here on the growth and the characterization ofp‐type CdTe grown by molecular beam epitaxy on (001) Cd0.96Zn0.04Te substrates. Nitrogen has been used as a dopant, which is activated in an electron cyclotron resonance plasma source. The carrier concentration was determined using a C/V profiler. Nitrogen has been successfully incorporated substitutionally and hole densities up to 2.6×1017cm−3have been achieved. In addition we present data from x‐ray diffraction and photoluminescence, which demonstrate the effect of self‐compensation on the nitrogen‐doped CdTe layers. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.