GeezerVison

Willard Boyle CC
Boyle in 2009
Born	Willard Sterling Boyle (1924-08-19)August 19, 1924 Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada
Died	May 7, 2011(2011-05-07) (aged 86) Wallace, Nova Scotia, Canada
Citizenship	Canada United States[1]
Education	McGill University (BSc, MSc, PhD)
Known for	Charge-coupled device Ruby laser
Spouse	Betty Joyce ​ (m. 1946)​
Children	4
Awards	Stuart Ballantine Medal (1973) IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award (1974) C&C Prize (1999) Edwin H. Land Medal (2001) Charles Stark Draper Prize (2006) Nobel Prize in Physics (2009)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Workplaces	Royal Military College of Canada Bell Labs
Thesis	The construction of a Dempster type mass spectrometer: its use in the measurement of the diffusion rates of certain alkali metals in tungsten (1950)
Doctoral advisor	H. Watson[2]

Willard Sterling Boyle (August 19, 1924 – May 7, 2011) was a Canadian applied physicist who shared one half of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics with George E. Smith for their invention of the charge-coupled device.^[3][4]

Willard Sterling Boyle was born on August 19, 1924, in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and lived in the nearby village of Wallace until the age of three, when he moved with his parents to northern Quebec, where his father worked as a doctor in the logging community. He was homeschooled by his mother, as the nearest school was 30 miles away.^[5] At age fourteen, he began his formal education at Lower Canada College in Montreal.^[6]

Boyle attended McGill University, but his education was interrupted in 1943, when he joined the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II, training to land Spitfires on aircraft carriers.^[6] After the war ended, Boyle resumed his studies at McGill, where he received a Bachelor of Science in 1947 and a Master of Science the following year. In 1950, he received a Doctor of Philosophy in Physics for a thesis on mass spectrometry.^[7][2]

After receiving his doctorate, Boyle spent one year at Canada's Radiation Laboratory and two years teaching physics at the Royal Military College of Canada.^[6]

In 1953, Boyle joined Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he invented the first continuously operating ruby laser with Don Nelson in 1962. He was made Director of Space Science and Exploratory Studies at Bellcomm (a subsidiary of Bell Labs) in 1962, providing support for the Apollo program and helping to select lunar landing sites. He returned to Bell Labs in 1964, working on the development of integrated circuits.^[7] Boyle was Executive Director of Research in the Communications Sciences Division from 1975 until his retirement in 1979.^[8]

In 1969, Boyle and George E. Smith invented the charge-coupled device (CCD), for which they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009.^[7] The CCD allowed NASA to send clear pictures to Earth back from space.^[5] It is also the technology that powers many digital cameras today. Smith said of their invention: "After making the first couple of imaging devices, we knew for certain that chemistry photography was dead."^[9] Eugene Gordon and Mike Tompsett, two now-retired colleagues from Bell Labs, claim that its application to photography was not invented by Boyle.^[10]

In 1946, Boyle married Betty Joyce, with whom he had two sons and two daughters.^[6][5]

During retirement, Boyle lived in Wallace, Nova Scotia, and in Lac Tremblant, Quebec. One of his hobbies was sailing his 33-foot boat.^[6]

Boyle had suffered from kidney disease, and died at a hospital in Wallace on May 7, 2011, at the age of 86.^[5]

• Willard Boyle on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture on December 8, 2009 CCD – an Extension of Man's Vision

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Willard Boyle.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Willard Boyle.

Wikinews has related news:

• Controversy raised about 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics