High Reflectance III-Nitride Bragg Reflectors Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) structures based on AlN/GaN have been grown on (0001) sapphire by electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy (ECR-MBE). The design of the structures was predetermined by simulations using the transmission matrix method. A number of structures have been grown with 20.5--25.5 periods showing peak reflectance ranging form the near-UV to the green wavelength regions. For the best sample, peak reflectance up to 99% was observed centered at 467 nm with a bandwidth of 45 nm. The experimental reflectance data were compared with the simulations and show excellent agreement with respect to peak reflectance, bandwidth of high reflectance and the locations of the sidelobes.