Geometry tailoring of emission from semiconductor nanowires and nanocones

Semiconductor nanowires are of interest as light emitters in applications such as light-emitting diodes and single-photon sources. Due to the three-dimensional geometry in combination with a size comparable to the wavelength of the emitted light, nanowires have shown strong scattering effects for the emitted light. Here, we demonstrate with electromagnetic modeling that the emission properties of nanowires/nanocones show a complicated dependence on the geometry of the nanowire/nanocone, the shape and position of the emitter region, and the polarization of the emitter. We show that with proper design, the extraction efficiency can close in on 80% for as-grown single nanowires/nanocones. Importantly, we demonstrate how the internal quantum efficiency of the emitter plays a large role in the design process. A considerably different geometry design approach should be undertaken at low and high internal quantum efficiency. Due to the complicated design optimization, we strongly recommend the use of electromagnetic modeling of the emission to give guidance for suitable designs before starting the fabrication and processing of nanowire/nanocone-based light emitters.