Willard Boyle

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. and was named on the first patent for a semiconductor injection laser. Eugene Gordon and Mike Tompsett, two now-retired colleagues from Bell Labs, claim that its application to photography was not invented by Boyle.

Personal life and death In retirement, Boyle split his time between Halifax and Wallace, Nova Scotia. In Wallace, he helped launch an art gallery with his wife, Betty, a landscape artist.

Recognition Awards Year Organization Award Citation 1973 Franklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Medal "Invention of charge-coupled device structure for imagesensing, serial memory and signal processing." 1974 IEEE IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award "For the invention of the charge-coupled device and leadership in the field of MOS device physics." 1999 NEC C&C Foundation C&C Prize "For the Invention of the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD)." 2001 Edwin H. Land Medal "For the invention and development of the charge-coupled device, a contribution that has had extraordinary impact on image creation and utilization." 2006 National Academy of Engineering Charles Stark Draper Prize "For the invention of the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a light-sensitive component at the heart of digital cameras and other widely used imaging technologies." 2009 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel Prize in Physics "For the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor."

Memberships Year Organization Type 1974 National Academy of Engineering Member

Chivalric titles Year Head of state Title 2010 Elizabeth II Companion of the Order of Canada