A needle in a needlestack: Exploiting functional inhomogeneity for optimized nanowire lasing

III-V semiconductor nanowires allow easy hetero-integration of optoelectronic components onto silicon due to efficient strain relaxation, well-understood design approaches and scalability. However continuous room temperature lasing has proven elusive. A key challenge is performing repeatable single-wire characterization { each wire can be different due to local growth conditions present during bottom-up growth. Here, we describe an approach using large-scale population studies which exploit inherent inhomogeneity to understand the complex interplay of geometric design, crystal structure, and material quality. By correlating nanowire length with threshold for hundreds of nanowire lasers, this technique reveals core-reabsorption as the critical limiting process in multiple-quantum-well nanowire lasers. By incorporating higher band-gap nanowire core, this effect is eliminated, providing reflectivity dominated behavior.