Gallium nitride (GaN), a direct bandgap semiconductor widely used in bright light-emitting diodes (LEDs), is mostly grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) method. A good reactor design is critical for the production of high-quality GaN thin films. In this paper, we presented a novel buffered distributed spray (BDS) MOCVD reactor with vertical gas sprayers and horizontal gas inlets. Experiments based on a 36 x 2" BDS reactor were conducted to examine influence of the process parameters, such as the operating pressure and the gas flow rate, on the growth efficiency and on the layer thickness uniformity. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and photoluminescence (EL) are further conducted to evaluate quality of the epitaxial layers and to check performance of the reactor. Results show that the proposed novel reactor is of high performance in growing high-quality thin films, including InGaN/GaN multiquantum wells (MQWs) structures. (C) 2015 Elsevier BY. All rights reserved,