The room‐temperature infrared reflectance of AlN–GaN short period superlattice films has been measured. These superlattice films were deposited by switched atomic layer metalorganic chemical vapor deposition onto GaN or AlN buffer layers deposited on basal plane sapphire substrates. The measured reflectance spectra are compared to calculated spectra using an effective medium theory to model the dielectric function of the superlattice. The optical properties of the individual materials making up the samples are modeled with Lorentz oscillators using only bulk input parameters. The effects of film and substrate anisotropy and off‐normal incidence are included in the calculation. Using this modeling technique, it is possible to obtain thickness estimates for the superlattice film and the buffer layer. The complicated structures seen in the reststrahl region reflectance of these films are also analyzed by comparison to the calculated spectra. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.