Selective-area growth (SAG) of cubic GaN (c-GaN) was performed on patterned GaAs [1 0 0] substrates by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. It was found that the growth feature and the crystal structure are sensitive to the growth temperature. For the SAG c-GaN on [0 1 1]-stripe pattern, by decreasing the growth temperature from 960degreesC to 900degreesC, the top surfaces changed from inclined (8 1 1)B facets to planar (10 0) facets. While, no effect of the growth temperature on the side walls of SAG c-GaN are observed. In contrast, for the SAG c-GaN on [0 0 1]-stripe pattern, the growth features are independent of the growth temperature. A rough surface and no distinct Facets are formed. The Xray diffraction results show that by decreasing the growth temperature, the FWHM of omega-scan decreases for the SAG c-GaN on the [0 1 1]-stripe pattern, while it increases for SAG c-GaN on the [0 0 1]-stripe pattern. The decrease in the FWHM of omega-scan indicates that the distribution of the crystal orientation becomes narrower. The narrowest FWHM was around 31 min for SAG c-GaN on [0 1 1]-stripe pattern at similar to900degreesC with a high cubic phase purity (>85%). Strong emission peaks of c-GaN were observed in the photoluminescence spectra without an emission peak of h-GaN for this sample. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.