This talk reviews experimental work to develop a detailed understanding of radiative recombination inn‐GaAs. Photoluminescence decay studies of minority carrier lifetimes versus doping inn‐GaAs are presented. We show that when the substrate is removed by etching, photon recycling is enhanced, and lifetimes increase by nearly a factor of 10. The doping‐dependent absorption coefficient is measured, and detailed balance arguments are used to relate absorption and recombination. Modeling surfaces, verified by comparison with experiments, are used to examine the effects of recycling in conventional solar cells and to explore new design options.