Photon mechanism of image smearing in integrated QWIP-LED pixelless devices

An analytical model of an integrated quantum-well infrared photodetector (QWIP) and light-emitting diode (LED) operating as a pixelless image up-converter is developed and used to estimate the device performance. It is shown that the reabsorption of the near-infrared photons trapped in the LED due to total internal reflection and their reemission can significantly influence the quality of the output image.