Continuous wave and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements were performed in order to understand the temperature and power dependence of the luminescence from visible quantum dots (QDs). The PL decay rate is found to be independent of temperature up to 100 K, confirming the high quality of the QDs. However, the intensity of the luminescence decays rapidly, which proved to be due to nonradiative recombination in the barriers, preventing the carriers from reaching the QDs. The dependence of the decay rate on incident power was also studied at 4.2 K. Excited state emission was seen at this temperature. [S0734-211X(98)06902-9].