Highly accurate layer thicknesses are required for multilayers involved in photonic devices, such as Bragg reflectors. In this letter, we demonstrate that precise, real‐time monitoring of molecular beam epitaxy growing layers can be achieved by near‐normal incidence dynamic reflectometry with a tunable sapphire–titanium laser used as a source. The advantage of this new technique lies in the possibility of synchronizing the material changes and the reflectivity extrema by selecting adequate analysis wavelengths. This technique is shown to provide 885 nm GaAs–AlAs Bragg reflectors with a layer thickness accuracy in excess of 1%. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.