Self-seeded growth of aluminum nitride single crystals in BN crucible was conducted by sublimation method. It was found that the growth temperature played a critical role in the determination of the crystal morphologies and the appearance crystalline planes. The (0001) and pseudo (11 (2) over bar0) planes were often present at low and high temperature, respectively. The self-seeded crystals possess high structural quality which were assessed by high resolution X-ray diffractometry with a full-width at half-maximum of 35.76 arcsec. Step flow mechanism for the growth of AlN similar to SiC growth was confirmed with the aid of atomic force microscopy. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.