Carrier Lifetime

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Carrier Lifetime denotes in semiconductor physics, is defined as the average time it takes an excess minority carrier to recombine.

Carrier Lifetime play an important role in bipolar transistors and solar cells.

The energy released due to recombination can be either thermal, heating up the semiconductor (thermal recombination, one of the sources of waste heat in semiconductors), or released as photons (optical recombination, used in LEDs and semiconductor lasers).