To improve the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) performances, copper-incorporated mesoporous alumina abrasive was synthesized by sol-gel method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and nitrogen adsorption analyses show that the prepared mesoporous abrasives have highly ordered mesostructures with nanoscale pore diameter and uniform porous size distribution. The CMP performances of the mesoporous abrasives on hard disk substrates were investigated. The results show that, by comparison with pure mesoporous alumina and solid alumina, the copper-incorporated mesoporous alumina abrasives have much larger material removal rate (MRR). And the surfaces of hard disk polished by the porous alumina abrasives (mesoporous alumina or copper-incorporated mesoporous alumina) have much lower topographical variations and surface roughness (Ra) than that polished by solid alumina. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.