Based on the combination of the first-principles and Monte Carlo method, the effect of vacancy defect on secondary electron characteristic of Al ₂O ₃is studied in this work. The density functional theory (DFT) calculation results show that the band structure changes when the vacancy defects exist. The existence of Al vacancy defects results in a decrease in band gap from 5.88 to 5.28 eV, and in Fermi level below the energy of the valence band maximum as well. Besides, the elastic mean free paths and inelastic mean free paths of electrons in different crystal structures are also obtained. The comparison shows that the inelastic mean free path of electrons in Al ₂O ₃with O vacancy defects is much larger than those of Al ₂O ₃without defects and Al ₂O ₃with Al vacancy defects. When the energy of electrons is smaller than 50 eV, the inelastic mean free path of electrons in Al ₂O ₃without defects is longer than that in Al ₂O ₃with Al vacancy defects. The elastic mean free path of electrons slightly increases when the vacancy defects exist, and the elastic mean free path of electrons in Al ₂O ₃with Al vacancy defects is the largest. In order to investigate the secondary electron emission characteristics under different vacancy defect ratios, an optimized Monte Carlo algorithm is proposed. When the ratio between O vacancy defect and Al vacancy defect increases, the simulation results show that the maximum value of secondary electron yield decreases with the ratio of vacancy defect increasing. The existence of O vacancy defects increases the probability of inelastic scattering of electrons, so electrons are difficult to emit from the surface. As a result, comparing with Al vacancy defect, the SEY of Al ₂O ₃decreases greatly under the same ratio of O vacancy defect.