A drive unit, in particular for a fan in motor vehicles, is indicated, comprising an electric motor operated on a DC line, and comprising a device for controlling the speed of the motor by changing the operating voltage applied at the motor. The shallow trench isolation structure suppresses photons injected from neighboring pixels and dark current, so that high-quality images are obtained. Each gas injector may be configured so as to cause gas flow proximate at least one optical surface of a solid state gain element of the laser beam system. A battery may be electrically connected to the generator so that the generator provides an electric current to recharge the battery. Alternately, RF or electro-static sensing could be used. The fiber optical amplifier has gain so as to amplify the stretched optical pulses.