Vicinal substrates of sapphire with miscut angle of 10 degrees from the (0 0 1) planes towards the [1 1 0] direction have been annealed in air in the range from 1000 to 1500 degrees C. The behaviour of these surfaces has been characterized as a function of the temperature and the thermal treatment time by Atomic Force Microscopy observations. A thermal treatment at 1250 degrees C allows to stabilize a surface made of periodically spaced nanosized step-bunches. Such stepped surfaces were used as template to grow self-patterned epitaxial oxide nanoparticles by thermal annealing of yttria-stabilized zirconia thin films produced by sol-gel dip-coating. Grazing Incidence Small Angle X-ray Scattering and High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy were used to study the morphology of the nanoparticles and their epitaxial relationships with the substrate. (C) 2009 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.