The light emission from reverse‐biased GaAsp‐njunctions was investigated using current pulses. Appreciable light emission was obtained only in the breakdown range. Light‐emission waveform had three components, i.e., emission waveform of nearly the same shape of current pulse (first component), emission wave delaying about 2 &mgr;sec from the onset of current pulse (second component), and unstable emission peak near the last part of the current pulse (third component). For the first component, the position of the reverse‐biased emission was the same as that of the forward‐biased emission. The light of the second component was emitted fromn‐type region of the diode, and this component will occur from the saturation of recombination rate near the junction. The third component was emitted from the relatively wide range of then‐type region containingp‐njunction, and this emission peak is the phenomenon preceding the destruction of the diodes.