We report evidence of a large blue shift (up to 70 meV) in the photoluminescence spectra of InAs/InP island like quantum wells following the reduction of the InP top barrier layer thickness from 6 nm to near zero. The photoluminescence intensity only starts to decrease when the top barrier thickness falls below 1.5 nm, indicating that radiative recombinations in the islands are very efficient. These results are well understood by a model assuming a vacuum confinement energy close to 5 eV. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.