An order of magnitude increase in the quantum efficiency of (Al)GaAs nanowires using hybrid photonic-plasmonic modes.

We demonstrate 900% relative enhancement in the quantum efficiency (QE) of surface passivated GaAs nanowires by coupling them to resonant nanocavities that support hybrid photonic-plasmonic modes. This nonconventional approach to increase the QE of GaAs nanowires results in QE enhancement over the entire nanowire volume and is not limited to the near-field of the plasmonic structure. Our cavity design enables spatially and spectrally tunable resonant modes and efficient in- and out-coupling of light from the nanowires. Furthermore, this approach is not fabrication intensive; it is scalable and can be adapted to enhance the QE of a wide range of low QE semiconductor nanostructures.