The Stokes shifts of the ground and the excited states in a crescent-shaped AlGaAs/GaAs quantum wire (QWR) are investigated using photoluminescence (PL) and PL excitation spectroscopy. The first excited electron to heavy-hole transition showed a Stokes shift (∼17 meV) considerably larger than that of ground state-related transitions (∼4 meV). This is a quite different phenomenon than that observed in two dimensional quantum well structures, and can be explained by the spatial separation of wave functions with different confinement energies in crescent-shaped QWRs. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.