Durian-like gallium nitride (GaN) microstructures were successfully synthesized on Si substrate by pre-treating Ga metal with aqueous NH3 via catalyst assisted chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method at 1200 degrees C. The as-synthesized product was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). XRD and EDX analysis revealed that durian-like GaN is pure and single phase. SEM results showed that the size of the durian-like GaN structures was 20-25 mu m. GaN microstructures exhibited reasonable field emission properties with the turn-on field of 8.24 V mu m(-1) (0.01 mA cm(-2)) and threshold field of 10.18 V mu m(-1) (1 mA cm(-2)) which is sufficient for applications of electron emission devices, field emission displays and vacuum micro-electronic devices. Photoluminescence (PL) properties of durian-like GaN studied at room temperature showed a strong near-band-edge emission at 369.4 nm (3.36 eV) whereas at low temperature it showed near-band-edge emission at 364.2 nm (3.4 eV) without yellow band emissions. The photoluminescence properties showed that it has also potential application in light-emitting devices. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.