A novel modulated beam growth method was proposed for the low temperature molecular beam epitaxy grown GaN layers. From reflection high-energy electron diffraction patterns, it was found that we could alternately achieve N-enriched surfaces and Ga-enriched surfaces during the growth. Scanning electron microscopic pictures also show that we could achieve better surface morphologies by using the modulated beam growth method. Improved X-ray diffraction characteristics were also demonstrated. These observations could all be attributed to the enhanced lateral growth of the modulated beam growth method. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.