  Nanowires have unique optical properties [1-4] and are considered as
important building blocks for energy harvesting applications such as solar
cells. [2, 5-8] However, due to their large surface-to-volume ratios, the
recombination of charge carriers through surface states reduces the carrier
diffusion lengths in nanowires a few orders of magnitude,[9] often resulting in
the low efficiency (a few percent or less) of nanowire-based solar cells. [7,
8, 10, 11] Reducing the recombination by surface passivation is crucial for the
realization of high performance nanosized optoelectronic devices, but remains
largely unexplored. [7, 12-14] Here we show that a thin layer of amorphous
silicon (a-Si) coated on a single-crystalline silicon nanowire (sc-SiNW),
forming a core-shell structure in-situ in the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) process,
reduces the surface recombination nearly two orders of magnitude. Under
illumination of modulated light, we measure a greater than 90-fold improvement
in the photosensitivity of individual core-shell nanowires, compared to regular
nanowires without shell. Simulations of the optical absorption of the nanowires
indicate that the strong absorption of the a-Si shell contributes to this
effect, but we conclude that the effect is mainly due to the enhanced carrier
lifetime by surface passivation.
