Willard S. Boyle, Nobel Prize Physics 2009

Willard S. Boyle was born on August 19. 1924 in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada. He was the son of a medical doctor. He was home schooled by his mother until the age of fourteen. He attended McGill University. But his education was interrupted in 1943 when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy. He gained a BSc (1947), MSc (1948) and PhD (1950) from McGill University. After receiving a doctorate he spent one year in Canada’s Radiation Lab and two years teaching physics at Royal Military College of Canada. In 1953 he joined Bell labs. He invented the first continuously operating ruby laser with Don Nelson in 1962. He was also involved with the first appearance of a semiconductor injection laser. He became the director of Space Science and Exploratory Studies at the Bell Labs subsidiary Bellcomm in 1962, providing support for the Apollo space program and helping to select lunar landing sites. In 1964, he returned to Bell Labs to work on the development of integrated circuits. In 1969 they invented the charge couple device. U.S. Naval Observatory spokesman Geoff Chester said that CCD has done as much to revolutionize the way astronomy is done as the telescope did . It allows us to see deeper in the universe with the same equipment with a clarity that is unparalleled. He also said that without a CCD, there would not be anything like the Hubble Space Telescope and our current knowledge of the universe would be nowhere near what it is. Boyle was the executive director of Research for Bell labs from 1975 until his retirement in 1979.

Willard S. Boyle and his colleague George E. Smith shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2009. The CCD is similar to digital camera’s electronic eye. Boyle retired in 1979 and has a PhD in physics from McGill University, Canada. They invented a technology that has given rise to film free photography . They developed a sensor that turns light into electrical signals. The CCD technology is used in some devices that doctors use to match inside patients.Their inventions totally change our way of living.

AWARDS AND HONORS

Willard S. Boyle gained several awards for his invention of CCD with Smith. They received the Franklin Institute’s Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1973, the 1974 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award, the 2006 Charles Stark Draper Prize, and the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for this invention.