Highly Reflective Distributed Bragg Reflectors for Planar Microcavities: From Modelling to Experimentation

Highly reflective distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) play significant in controlling and manipulating the spontaneous emission of light in photonic and optoelectronic devices. Herein, we report a systemic study based on the complete theoretical modeling and the fabrication of highly reflective DBR comprised of 7.5 periods of repeating TiO 2 /SiO 2 thin films. Firstly, a computational model based on the transfer matrix method was used to simulate the reflectance, transmittance, and electric field intensity distribution across the DBR structure. Subsequently, fabrication was performed via the conventional electron beam evaporation technique. Interestingly, the as-grown DBR exhibits low surface roughness ~ 0.767 nm and sharp interfaces between the neighboring TiO 2 and SiO 2 films manifesting the high quality of the fabrication process. Consequently, an excellent consistency was observed between the simulated and the experimental reflectance and transmittance spectra confirming the successful growth of the 7.5 pairs DBR. Moreover, the high reflectance ~ 99.0% reflectance and the large stopband width ~ 190 nm in the range 600–800 nm indicates the superior performance of the as-fabricated DBRs and were therefore utilized to develop a highly reflective monolithic and a Tamm plasmon planar microcavities. Graphical Abstract