A large number of tellurium nanowires were prepared on quartz substrates coated with Au sol by thermal evaporation method in a vacuum tube furnace with Bi2Te3 as the source at 560 °C for 2h. The microstructure and morphology of tellurium nanowires were characterized by XRD, SEM and HRTEM. The results showed that the as prepared tellurium nanowires were cubic single crystal tellurium nanowires oriented along the (101) direction with diameters ranging from 40 to 100 nm. The growth mechanism conforms to the VLS growth mechanism .The evaporation source material and Au sol were the key factors for the preparation of tellurium nanowires by thermal evaporation.