† Departamento de Fı́sica, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco,

We investigate the confined exciton properties in InGaN/GaN cylindrical quantum wires. We have solved numerically Schrödinger-like equations in the effective mass approximation and have found the energy levels and wavefunctions for confined electrons and holes, using these results to calculate variationally the confined exciton energy. A comparison was made between graded and abrupt quantum wires, showing that the existence of smooth interfaces enhances the confined exciton energy if the wire radius is smaller than 50 Å. We conclude that the existence of graded interfaces must be considered for a better description of the exciton based optical properties of InGaN/GaN quantum wires.