a b s t r a c t NIR/VIS emission spectra of the bismuth telluride radical, BiTe, were measured in the 3600-20 000 cm À1 region with a Fourier-transform spectrometer. BiTe was produced by reaction of bismuth and tellurium vapors and excited by energy transfer from metastable oxygen O 2 (a 1 D g ) in a fast-flow system. The spectrum of BiTe was found to be markedly different from those of the previously studied BiO, BiS and BiSe radicals. The A 2 4 P 1/2 ? X 1 2 P 1/2 transition which forms the most prominent and extended band system in these molecules was not observed for BiTe, and the X 2 2 P 3/2 ? X 1 2 P 1/2 fine structure transition shows up with a different structure and at much lower wavenumbers than in the spectra of the lighter bismuth chalcogenides. The only common feature is the C 1 4 R À 1/2 ? X 1 2 P 1/2 system which is found in the range 16 500-19 000 cm À1 similar to the three other molecules. Besides the X 2 ? X 1 and C 1 ? X 1 systems, seven other transitions show up by short Dm = 0 sequences only. With help of the data derived from the analyses of the X 2 ? X 1 and C 1 ? X 1 systems and theoretical predictions of electronic and vibrational energies and transition probabilities of the strongest transitions of BiTe by Lingott et al. (2004) [7] the spectra were assigned to the transitions C 1 4