Effective preparation of clean GaN surfaces is vital for surface studies, and also has a key role to play in the development of nitride-based electronic devices, due to the importance of forming good metal-semiconductor contacts. We identify the effect of two common surface cleaning treatments (annealing in ammonia, and.,sputtering in nitrogen followed by in vacuo annealing) on surface reconstruction, morphology and stoichiometry, by employing a combination of in situ RHEED and scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), and ex situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). We show how the defect densities in as-treated GaN surfaces may be reduced by growing thin layers of GaN by low-pressure MBE, a technique compatible with most experimental surface science systems. By using a combination of in situ etching and low-pressure growth, we show that it is possible to obtain very similar surface structures to those obtained by full-scale MBE. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.