Herein is a discussion of how the structural and optical properties of m-plane GaN (m-GaN) films are affected by the inclination direction of vicinal m-plane sapphire substrate. The m-GaN films were grown on three different types of substrates inclined toward the a-axis direction, the c-axis direction, and with no inclination. We found that m-GaN film grown on an m-plane sapphire inclined in the a-axis direction showed the highest quality with a smooth surface and a low stacking fault density. A model is proposed that shows how the surface step of a substrate can reduce the generation of stacking fault in m-GaN film. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.