Optical device

Abstract

The invention relates to an optical device, preferably operating according to the time-of-flight principle, particularly for obtaining 3D spatial information and/or for detecting polarisation-changing materials, comprising: a light-producing device comprising at least one light emitter for emitting light into a spatial area; a light-receiving device comprising at least one light detector that can be, or is, oriented towards the spatial area; a polarisation manipulator comprising at least one first optical modulator for influencing a polarisation of a light passing through the modulator and at least one polarization filter which is optically connected downstream of the modulator, where the first optical modulator is designed to generate at least three different polarisation states and/or where a superposition device is provided and designed in such a way that at least three polarisation states can be generated, particularly by time-division multiplexing; and an evaluation device for particularly successive evaluation of the at least three polarisation states of the light passing through the polarisation manipulator.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.