The crystallographic tilt of the lateral epitaxial overgrown (LEO) GaN on sapphire Substrate with SiNx mask is investiaated by double crystal X-ray diffraction. Two wing peaks beside the GaN 0002 peak can be observed for the as-grown LEO GaN. During the selective etching of SiNx mask, each wing peak splits into two peaks, one of which disappears as the mask is removed, while the other remains unchanged. This indicates that the crystallographic tilt of the overgrown region is caused not only by the plastic deformation resulted from the bending of threading dislocations, but by the non-uniformity elastic deformation related with the GaN, SiNx interfacial forces. The widths of these two peaks are also studied in this paper. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.