A fully depleted silicon on insulator (FDSOI) is employed to reduce diffusion leakage (e.g., gate induced drain leakage, junction leakage, etc.) associated with the diffusion regions of a pixel cell. The buried oxide (BOX) layer, for example, fully isolates the transistor channel region, such as an (N) channel region of the pixel cell from the photodiode(s) of the pixel region, eliminating the junction leakage path, thus leading to a reduction in diffusion leakage and an increase device operation speed. An increase of full well capacity can also be realized by the absence of isolation structure, such as trench isolation or isolation implant structure.