Willard Boyle
Willard S. Boyle | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 19, 1924 |
| Citizenship | Canada United States |
| Alma mater | McGill University |
| Known for | Charge-coupled device |
| Awards | IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award Draper Prize Nobel Prize in Physics (2009) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Applied physics |
| Institutions | Bell Labs |
Willard Sterling Boyle (born August 19, 1924) is a Canadian-born, American physicist[1][2] and co-inventor of the charge-coupled device.[3] On October 6, 2009 it was announced that he would share the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for "the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit—the CCD sensor".[4]
Life
Born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, he is the son of a medical doctor and moved to Quebec with his father and mother Beatrice when he was three.[5] He was home schooled by his mother until age fourteen, when he attended Montreal's Lower Canada College to complete his secondary education.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page). Boyle attended McGill University, but his education was interrupted in 1943, when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page). He was loaned to the Britain's Royal Navy, where he was learning how to land Spitfires on aircraft carriers as the war ended.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page). He gained a BSc (1947), MSc (1948) and PhD (1950) from McGill University.
Career
After receiving his doctorate Boyle spent one year at Canada's Radiation Lab and two years teaching physics at the Royal Military College of Canada.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page). In 1953 Boyle joined Bell Labs where he invented the first continuously operating ruby laser with Don Nelson in 1962, and was named on the first patent for a semiconductor injection laser. He was made 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. He returned to Bell Labs in 1964, working on the development of integrated circuits.
In 1969, Boyle and George E. Smith invented the charge-coupled device (CCD), for which they have jointly 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.
Boyle was Executive Director of Research for Bell Labs from 1975 until his retirement in 1979. In retirement, he settled in Wallace, Nova Scotia, and helped launch an art gallery with his wife Betty, a landscape artist.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name (see the help page). He has been married to Betty since 1947, and has four children, 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.[3] In 2009, he and his wife live in Halifax.[3]
Notes
- ^ Bellair, Amber (2009-10-06). "From Lester Pearson to today". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
- ^ Chang, Kenneth (2009-10-07). "Nobel Awarded for Harnessing Light". The New York Times. p. A20. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
- ^ a b c "Canadian scientist shares Nobel physics prize". The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2009-10-06. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
- ^ The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009, Nobel Foundation, October 6, 2009, retrieved 2009-10-06
- ^ Baxter, Joan (2006-02-16). "A modest man's big idea Digital chip changed the world". The Toronto Star: A3. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
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