We demonstrated a new application of body current to quantitative characterization of carrier lifetime in thin silicon-on-insulator (SOI) films. Previously, we have characterized the energy distribution of trap density in fully depleted (FD) SOI metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs), and furthermore, we have demonstrated that recombination at SOI/buried oxide (BOX) interface can suppress kink effect. However, little is known about electronic properties of thin SOI layers. Hence, in this study, we proposed a new electric measurement technique for characterizing recombination lifetime in thin SOI layers from body currents of MOSFETs. We investigated the dependence of inverse hole lifetime 1/tau(h) on substrate bias V-sub. Furthermore, we considered that the converged value gives the lifetime of bulk recombination, tau(bulk), while the variation of 1/tau(h) gives the lifetime of surface recombination, tau(surface). We also succeeded in reproducing the tendency of 1/tau(h)-V-sub curves by numerical 3D device simulation. Our approach could separate the effect of bulk recombination and that of surface recombination on SOI layers. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.