Patent ID: 7053357

Claim:
A method of determining the phase and/or amplitude information of an electromagnetic wave in which an electromagnetic wave is radiated onto the surface of a photonic mixing element having at least one pixel, wherein the pixel has at least two light-sensitive modulation photogates G am and G bm and associated accumulation gates G a and G b , in which there are applied to the modulation photogates G am and G bm modulation photogate voltages U am (t) and U bm (t) which are in the form of U am (t)=U o +U m (t) and U bm (t)=U o −U m (t), wherein U o represents a bias voltage of the accumulation gates G a and G b , wherein applied to the accumulation gates G a and G b is a dc voltage whose magnitude is at least as great as the magnitude of the sum of U o and the amplitude of the modulation voltage U m (t), in which charge carriers produced in a space charge zone of the modulation photogates G am and G bm by the electromagnetic wave are exposed to a potential gradient of a drift field in dependence on the polarity of the modulation photogate voltages U am (t) and U bm (t) and drift to the corresponding accumulation gate G a and G b , in which charges q a and q b which have drifted to the respective accumulation gates G a and G b are taken off, and wherein the phase and amplitude information is directly computed in an electronic pixel reading-out and signal pre-processing system which is integrated on a chip containing said photonic mixing element.