A high-quality ZnGeP 2 (ZGP) single crystal with large size of U30 mm 9 80 mm was grown by a modified vertical Bridgman method. ZGP wafers were annealed with ZGP polycrystalline powder for 300 h at 550, 600 and 650°C, respectively. The as-grown and annealed crystals were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), IR microscope and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Results show that the quality of all wafers is improved evidently after annealing and the optimum annealing temperature obtained is 600°C. The IR transmittance of the wafer measured by FTIR is up to 56.78 % at wavelength of 2.0 lm nearby and exceeds 59.00 % in the wavelength range of 3.0-8.0 lm. The deviations from stoichiometry decrease, and the homogeneity of the crystal is also improved after annealing. In this paper, scanning infrared map was proposed as a new nondestructive method to evaluate optical quality and homogeneity of crystal through comparing the IR transmittance with the three-dimensional IR spectral contour map.