Single junction photovoltaic devices composed of direct bandgap III-V semiconductors such as GaAs can exploit the effects of photon recycling to achieve record-high open circuit voltages. Modeling such devices yields insight into the design and material criteria required to achieve high efficiencies. For a GaAs cell to reach 28 % efficiency without a substrate, the Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) lifetimes of the electrons and holes must be longer than 3 s and 100 ns respectively in a 2 μm thin active region coupled to a very high reflective (>99%) rear-side mirror. The model is generalized to account for luminescence coupling in tandem devices, which yields direct insight into the top cell’s non-radiative lifetimes. A heavily current mismatched GaAs/GaAs tandem device is simulated and measured experimentally as a function of concentration between 3 and 100 suns. The luminescence coupling increases from 14 % to 33 % experimentally, whereas the model requires an increasing SRH lifetime for both electrons and holes to explain these experimental results. However, intermediate absorbing GaAs layers between the two sub-cells may also increasingly contribute to the luminescence coupling as a function of concentration. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).