Evidence for low surface recombination velocity on <i>n</i>-type InP

A comparison was made of the photoluminescent (PL) intensities of n-type InP and GaAs at room temperature. The PL intensity for InP was over 100 times greater than for comparably doped GaAs. The effect of surface recombination velocity S on the PL intensity was evaluated numerically. When this evaluation is applied to the PL intensity ratios of n-type InP and GaAs it shows that S for n-type InP is sufficiently small to eliminate significant influence of nonradiative surface recombination on the observed PL intensity.