The surface regions of (100), (110) and (111) oriented single crystals of GaAs have been investigated by the combine techniques of LEED, AES and RBS subsequent to their irradiation in UHV with the output of a Q–switched, ruby laser (0.15−0.8 J/cm2, 15 × 10−9 sec). Clean surfaces, as determined by AES, were obtained after Ar+ sputtering followed by laser irradiation. LEED observations indicate that the degree of disorder in the outermost surface layers remaining after irradiation depends on the crystal orientation. Although the relative intensities of Ga and As Auger transitions in spectra obtained from sputtered and laser annealed surfaces are similar, the differences in lineshape in these spectra of the M2,3M4,5M4,5 Ga Auger transition indicate that in the laser annealed case there are local regions which are nonstoichiometric. These observations are confirmed by RBS results, and this technique has been used to determine the stoichiometry and to characterize the damage in the subsurface region for all orientations.