We report on results of the fabrication and the micro-reflectance measureme
nt of GaN photonic crystals. The etching performance of GaN has been studie
d with a conventional reactive ion etching system and SiCl4 plasma. We obta
ined an etch rate of 100 nm/min and etching depth of 600 nm for dense GaN p
illars. With graphite lattice of 270 run period we observed a high reflecti
on peak in the region of 400 nm wavelengths, depending strongly on the inci
dent light polarization, which is in a good agreement with the theoretical
calculation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.