Strong suppression of surface recombination in InGaAs nanopillars

Scaling down optoelectronic devices, namely nano-lasers and detectors, to deep sub-micrometer sizes, is crucial to achieve small footprint ( 2 ), low energy consumption (<10 fJ/bit), and ultrafast speed required for the future optical interconnects [1]. Among the numerous challenges, non-radiative processes, specifically large surface recombination rates, have been shown to have a detrimental effect on the efficiency of nano-lasers and nano-LEDs [2, 3], as the surface-to-volume ratio of these nanoscale devices increases substantially. Although there has been intense research in core-shell semiconductor nanostructures [4], and surface passivation techniques [5], so far the achieved surface recombination rates are still too large to realize efficient nanoscale light sources at room-temperature (RT), particularly in the InGaAs material system crucial for optical communication applications.