A simple method for the separation of bulk and surface recombination parameters, based on the simultaneous control of time and amplitude characteristics of carrier concentration decay, is presented. To enhance the precision of the parameter extraction procedure, the amplitude is determined using a wavelength resulting in near surface carrier excitation while the effective lifetime is measured for homogeneous bulk excitation. For the fast interpretation of experimental data, a technique using nomographs of amplitude–decay time correlated dependencies on modulation depth is proposed. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.