We report growth and optical properties of a novel system of CdTe nanoparticls doped P2O5–Na2O–ZnO– Li2O glass matrix. We have investigated the effect of concentration, annealing time and temperature on the band gap and size of the CdTe semiconductor nanoparticles. In addition the effect of adding ZnO to the glass matrix on the growing of the nanoparticles has been investigated. We found that the addition of ZnO to the glass composition is strongly affecting the growth of the nanoparticles. On the other hand, we have calcu-lated the size polydispersity index which showed narrow size distribution for the prepared nanoparticles. Furthermore, we have estimated the activation energy of diffusion for the prepared CdTe nanoparticles which gave the activation energy with low value~ 44 kJ mol-1.