Because of the high basicity of mineralizer solution used for growing ZnO crystal

a closed precious inner metal container is essential for preventing the incorporation of impurities from the inner surface of the autoclave and for the growth of high-quality ZnO single crystal. Many researchers used platinum inner contai-ner but Pt is quite costly. In this paper

we report our growth of single ZnO crystals by the hydrothermal method using a gold inner container and the characterization of the grown crystals.ZnO crystals have been grown by the hydrothermal method using a mixed solution of KOH

LiOH and H

2

O

2

as the mineralizer. The growing rates for +

c

(0001) and -

c

(00

01

) direction are 0.17 and 0.09 mm/day

respectively. The impurity concentration was determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS). The crystal-linity of the grown ZnO crystal was characterized by X-ray rocking curve measurement using a Philips X’pert MRD. The absorptivity was tested by a Jasco V-570 UV/Vis/NIR spectrophotometer

and the photoluminescence(PL) exited by a He-Cd laser (λ=325nm) was measured at room temperature.The results show that the incorporation of K was under detective limit;Li originated from LiOH was observed in both +

c

and -

c

regions. In addition

Au that may be corroded by H

2

O

2

and Si came from the nutrients were also observed by ICP-MS. Other impurity concentrations (such as Al

Fe

Cu

and Pb) of the -

c

region were much higher than those of the +

c

region

and the crystal color changes from light green for +

c

sector to dark brown for -

c

sector. The full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of double axis X-ray rocking curve for the polished Zn face cut from +

c

sector is 45 arcsec. For the +

c

sector

the resistivity at room temperature is 80Ω·cm

the carrier concentration is about 10

4

cm

-3

and the mobility is about 100 cm

2

/V·s.The photoluminescence (PL) spectrum has only a strong UV emission at 376 nm (3.3 eV)from the band edge and the absorption spectrum of +

c

part of the crystals is very flat between 400 and 1600 nm at room temperature.