We present the results of spectroscopic studies on GaN based epitaxial materials on SiC substrates by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. A variety of techniques has been used to study the optical properties of GaN epilayers and GaN/AlGaN heterostructures. Sharp spectral structures associated with the intrinsic free excitons were observed by photoluminescence and reflectance measurements from GaN based materials grown on SiC substrates. The residual strain was found to have a strong influence in determining the energies of exciton transitions. Picosecond relaxation studies of exciton decay dynamics suggest that an AlGaN cladding layer with a small mole fraction of AlN can be relatively effective in enhancing the radiative recombination rate for excitons by reducing the density of dislocations and suppressing surface recombination velocity in the GaN active layer for the GaN/AlGaN heterostructure samples. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.