  We report epitaxial growth of a-plane (11-20) AlInN layers
nearly-lattice-matched to GaN. Unlike for c-plane oriented epilayers, a-plane
Al_{1-x}In_{x}N cannot be simultaneously lattice-matched to GaN in both
in-plane directions. We study the influence of temperature on indium
incorporation and obtain nearly-lattice-matched Al_{0.81}In_{0.19}N at a growth
temperature of 760^{o}C. We outline a procedure to check in-plane lattice
mismatch using high resolution x-ray diffraction, and evaluate the strain and
critical thickness. Polarization-resolved optical transmission measurements of
the Al_{0.81}In_{0.19}N epilayer reveal a difference in bandgap of ~140 meV
between (electric field) E_parallel_c [0001]-axis and E_perpendicular_c
conditions with room-temperature photoluminescence peaked at 3.38 eV strongly
polarized with E_parallel_c, in good agreement with strain-dependent
band-structure calculations.
