Photoluminescence decay in low-doped lattice-matched GaInAs/InP multip
le quantum wells has been studied over a range of excess carrier densi
ties. High carrier densities, which moved the Fermi level up to the to
p of the wells, could be created without focusing the laser beam. Radi
ative band-to-band recombination was shown to dominate up to excess ca
rrier densities of 2.5 x 10(12) cm-2 per well. A kinetic radiative rec
ombination model which included free carriers, excitons and photon rec
yling was used to fit the transient decays in the regime in which the
electrons were non-degenerate. At carrier densities greater than 2.5 x
10(12) cm-2 per well, when both electrons and holes were degenerate,
the recombination was predominantly non-radiative. An Auger coefficien
t of 4.0 x 10(-29) cm6 s-1 was estimated for 5 nm quantum wells. No st
imulated recombination was detected