Though Indium beam irradiation toward the substrate before growing, high density uniform InN nanocolumns were obtained on p-GaAs(0 0 1) substrate and their possible one dimensional (1D) growth mechanism was analyzed. Rocking curves of all samples showed that Indium beam irradiation method had improved the crystal quality largely, which might be an effective way to release the strain between hexagonal InN(0 0 0 1) and cubic GaAs(0 0 1) with large lattice mismatch. Through quantitative analysis of XPS spectra gotten by in situ measurement, it was found that the InN stoichiometric ratio of all three samples were close to 1:1, which revealed that there was no residual metal at the tip of our nanocolumns. No catalyst or residual metal left could keep its electronic and optical property intact. All three samples showed strong photoluminescence at room temperature. To effectively release the strain and get well surface and interface are important for heterojunction optoelectronic device based on InN. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.