Willard S. Boyle life and biography

Canadian-American physicist Willard S. Boyle invented the charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor in 1970, working with George E. Smith at Bell Labs in New Jersey. The CCD is an imaging semiconductor circuit which almost instantly transforms light into digitized image points, or pixels, and descendants of Boyle and Smith's device power digital cameras and camcorders, as well as advanced medical equipment and high-tech applications including the Mars probe and Hubble space telescope.

Boyle was co-inventor of the semiconductor injection laser (the basis for later development of compact disc players and recorders) and the continuously pumped ruby laser (used in tattoo removal). He also researched infrared spectroscopy, low-temperature magnetothermal oscillations, and the properties of bismuth. Thirty years after his retirement from Bell Labs, Boyle won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009, sharing the highest honor in science with Smith, and with Charles K. Kao, who pioneered fiber optics.

Honors and Awards:

Bell Laboratories Research & Development (1953-62)
Bell Laboratories Director of Space Science and Exploratory Studies (1962-64)
Bell Laboratories Director of Communication Science Division (1964-75)
Bell Laboratories Executive Director of Research (1975-79)
American Physical Society
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
IEEE
National Academy of Engineering
Society for Imaging Science and Technology
Franklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Medal 1973 (with George E. Smith)
Charles Stark Draper Prize 2006 (with George E. Smith)
Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award 1974 (with George E. Smith)
Photographic Society of America Progress Medal 1986 (with George E. Smith)
Computer and Communications Prize 1999 (with George E. Smith)
National Inventors Hall of Fame 2006
Nobel Prize for Physics 2009 (with Charles K. Kao and George E. Smith)

Read more