Ultrathin Bi 2 Te 3 nanoplates have been grown on an oxidized silicon substrate by a modi¯ed hotwall epitaxy (HWE) method, in which a quartz plate with holes was employed. The micro-structures and optical properties of Bi 2 Te 3 nanoplates were investigated by X-ray di®raction(XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM) and micro-Ramanspectroscopy. The results show that ultrathin Bi 2 Te 3 nanoplates with the thickness of about sixquintuple layers (QLs) are obtained, which is di±cult for the traditional HWE technique. TheRaman vibration mode A11gfrom the nanoplates exhibits an obviously red shift with decreasingthickness. The thickness variation of one nanoplate was obtained by the Raman map derivedfrom the vibration frequency of A11gmode and is in good agreement with the AFM result, whichindicates that Raman map is an e®ective method to characterize the thickness di®erence ofultrathin Bi 2 Te 3 nanoplates.