Room temperature recombination dynamics have been studied in partially ordered and disordered ternary alloys of In0.53Ga0.97As by correlated measurements of transmission electron diffraction and photoconductive decay. Ultrahigh frequency photoconductive decay measurements show that pulsed yttrium-aluminum-garnet laser-induced excess carriers in disordered films decay by conventional mechanisms such as the Shockley-Read-Hall effect. In highly ordered ternaries, recombination of excess carriers is retarded by some mechanisms such as charge separation. Excess carrier lifetimes exceeding several hundred microseconds have been observed. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.