The room‐temperature minority carrier lifetimes have been measured on 6H SiC epitaxial layers with residualn‐type doping ranging from below 1014cm−3to above 1017cm−3. Lifetimes as high as 0.45 &mgr;s have been achieved for thick low‐doped material. The samples were grown by chemical vapor deposition using silane and propane or silane and methane in a hydrogen ambient. The minority carrier lifetimes were measured by monitoring the decay of the near‐band gap room‐temperature luminescence of the samples after excitation of a short laser pulse. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.