The degree of enhancement in radiative recombination in ensembles of semiconductor nanowires after chemical treatment is quantified within a derived limit by correlating the energy released during the photoemission processes of the light–matter reaction and the effective carrier recombination lifetimes. It is argued that the usage of surface recombination velocity or surface saturation current density as passivation metrics that assess the effectiveness of surface passivation does not provide strict and universal theoretical bounds within which the degree of passivation can be confined. In this context, the model developed in this study provides a broadly applicable surface passivation metric for direct energy bandgap semiconductor materials. This is because of its reliance on the dispersion in energy and lifetime of electron–hole recombination emission at room temperature, in lieu of the mere dependence on the ratio …