Dual-gate charge sensing in charge-coupled devices

A novel technique is described for linear sensing of charge in tapped charge-coupled devices. It uses two gates. One is biased by a voltage source and one is floating, but both are coupled by surface-potential equilibrium. It is shown, experimentally and theoretically, that this technique has better linearity and dynamic range than floating-gate sensing. It has the same ease of peripheral circuit implementation as a floating-gate structure.