Resonant-Cavity-Enhanced Far-Infrared Upconversion Imaging Devices

We have carried out a detailed investigation on the application of resonant cavities to the photon-frequency-upconversion-based far-infrared (FIR) semiconductor imaging devices. The employment of a bottom mirror (BM) enhances the FIR photon absorption efficiency and, therefore, increases the quantum efficiency of GaAs homojunction interfacial work- function internal photoemission (HIWIP) FIR detectors. Significant improvement of the extraction efficiency could be achieved in resonant cavity enhanced (RCE) GaAs-AlGaAs near-infrared (NIR) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) through redirecting as many NIR photons as possible into the escape cone. Under the optimal structural parameters, we have predicted that the upconversion quantum efficiency of the integrated HIWIP-BM-RCE-LED imaging device could be boosted to 5-6 times of the normal HIWIP-LED upconverter without any resonant cavities. As a consequence of few reincarnation cycles needed by NIR photons to escape in the photon recycling process, we can further expect sharp and high-resolution imaging in HIWIP-BM-RCE-LED