Laser lift off (LLO) was one of the most essential processes in fabrication of vertical GaN-based LEDs. However, traditional laser lift off of GaN on sapphire substrates needed high laser energy threshold, which deteriorated the GaN crystal. In this paper, it was found that inserting carbon nanotube between GaN and sapphire could effectively reduce the laser energy threshold in GaN LLO, from 1.5 J/cm(2) of conventional GaN/sapphire to 1.3 J/cm(2) of CNT inserted GaN/sapphire. The temperature distributions at the GaN/sapphire interfaces with and without CNTs were simulated by the finite elements calculation under laser irradiation. It was found that, due to the higher laser absorption coefficient of CNT, the CNT played as a powerful heating wire, sending out the thermal outside to elevate the GaN's temperature, and thus reduce the laser threshold for LLO. Raman and photoluminescence measurements indicated that residual stress of GaN membranes was as small as 0.3 GPa by the carbon nanotube assisted LLO. This work not only opens new application of CNTs, but also demonstrates the potential of high performance blue and green LEDs. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.