In this work, the influence of a wide range anodizing temperature (5-30 °C) on the growth and optical properties of PAA-based distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) was studied. It was demonstrated that above 10 °C both structural and photonic properties of the DBRs strongly deteriorates: the photonic stop bands (PSBs) decay, broaden, and split, which is accompanied by the red shift of the PSBs. However, at 30 °C, new bands in transmission spectra appear including one strong and symmetric peak in the mid-infrared (MIR) spectral region. The PSB in the MIR region is further improved by a small modification of the pulse sequence which smoothen and sharpen the interfaces between consecutive low and high refractive index layers. This is a first report on PAA-based DBR with a good quality PSB in MIR. Moreover, it was shown that in designing good quality DBRs a steady current recovery after subsequent application of high potential (UH) pulses is more important than large contrast between low and high potential pulses (UH-UL contrast). Smaller UH-UL contrast helps to better control the current evolution during pulse anodization. Furthermore, the lower PSB intensity owing to the smaller UH-UL contrast can be partially compensated by the higher anodizing temperature.
Keywords: PAA-based DBR; distributed Bragg reflector (DBR); photonic stop band (PSB); porous anodic alumina (PAA); pulse anodization; temperature; transmission spectra.