Image sensor with controllable vertically integrated photodetectors

An image sensor comprising:

• a substrate layer of a first conductivity type;
• a first contact for receiving a predetermined constant potential;
• a second contact for receiving a time-variant potential;
• and
• a plurality of pixels with at least one pixel comprising:
• a front-side photodetector of the first conductivity type disposed in the substrate layer adjacent to a front-side of the substrate layer;
• a front-side pinning layer of a second conductivity type disposed in the front-side photodetector spanning the front-side photodetector, wherein the first contact is electrically connected to the front-side pinning layer;
• a backside photodetector of the first conductivity type disposed in the substrate layer adjacent to a backside of the substrate layer;
• a backside pinning layer of the second conductivity type spanning the backside photodetector, wherein the second contact is electrically connected to the backside pinning layer and the backside pinning layer being completely separated from the front-side pinning layer by a material of the first conductivity type such that the front-side pinning layer and the backside pinning layer are not in contact;
• and
• fully depleted photodetector regions at the front-side photodetector and at the backside photodetector and a middle barrier region separating the fully depleted photodetector regions in response to the time-variant potential, the time-variant potential configures the middle barrier region to electrically isolate the front-side fully depleted photodetector region and the backside fully depleted photodetector region and to electrically couple the front-side fully depleted photodetector region and the backside fully depleted photodetector region as a function of the time-variant potential.