This paper reports on low-pressure metalorganic vapour deposition (LP-MOCVD) growth optimisation of GaAlN/GaN heterostructures grown on SiCopSiC (silicon carbide-oxyde-polycrystalline silicon carbide) composite Substrates for HEMT applications, and on the first device performances obtained with these structures. Some critical growth parameters, such as growth temperature, V/III ratio and nucleation layer at the GaN/SiC interface, have been investigated, and their impact on physical properties of these heterostructures is studied. Such optimisation of the growth conditions has led to GaAlN/GaN HEMT heterostructures which are successfully compared in terms of material quality to the standard HEMT heterostructures grown on bulk SiC substrates. Their electrical characteristics, such as sheet carrier density (N-s), mobility (mu), pinch-off voltage (V-p) or sheet resistance (R-s), are very similar to those obtained on bulk SiC substrates and their crystallographic properties, assessed by high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), seem to be in good agreement with the above-mentioned electrical characteristics. First devices with 0.5 mu m gate length, made on these specific composite wafers, exhibit very good microwave performances, with output power of 5 W/mm at 10 GHz, similar to those obtained on bulk SiC substrates, showing the promising capability of SiCopSiC composite substrates. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.