Periodic nanostructures were fabricated on GaAs wafers by four-beam laser interference patterning which have potential applications in many fields.

Significant different results were obtained on epi-ready and homo-epitaxial GaAs substrate surfaces.

Two-pulse patterning was carried out on homo-epitaxial GaAs substrate, a noticeable morphology transformation induced by the second pulse was observed.

Temperature distribution on sample surface as a function of time and position was calculated by solving the heat diffusion equations. The calculation agrees well with the experiment results.