By fast heating the nano-sized Al 2 O 3 and carbon black mixtures at 50 • C/min to 1750 • C for 30-120 min, single-phase AlON powders were successfully obtained by a fast one-step carbothermal reduction and nitridation (CRN) method. The AlON ceramics pressureless sintered at 1880 • C for 150 min by these powders show high transmittances up to 83%-84%, which indicates that the proposed fast one-step CRN method is an effective and efficient way with strong robustness to synthesize single-phase AlON powder for highly transparent AlON ceramics. It was found that α-Al 2 O 3 particles do not have enough time to aggregate and coalesce during heating due to the tremendously shortened heating span, which significantly inhibited particle coarsening until the formation of AlON starts. The fast-formed AlON further inhibits the coarsening of α-Al 2 O 3 during dwelling. Consequently, single-phase AlON powder of small primary particles can be obtained after 30 min dwelling at 1750 • C.