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Digital Imagery Pioneers Were Also Sailors

Navy veteran George E. Smith and Willard S. Boyle shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physics for their 1969 invention of the light-sensitive charge-coupled device, which made digital imagery possible.  

Two men in suits are seated with nameplates and microphones in front of them.
Smith and Boyle
George E. Smith and Willard S. Boyle are awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Dec. 12, 2009.
Credit: Courtesy of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
VIRIN: 091207-O-D0439-001

In a CCD image sensor, pixels are represented by p-doped metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors. These MOS capacitors produce images when incoming photons are converted into electron charges at the semiconductor-oxide interface. 

Doping refers to the introduction of impurities into a semiconductor to modulate its electrical, optical and structural properties. 

The inside of a digital camera is shown with an outer ring and an inner rectangle.
Digital Technology
Many digital cameras contain a charge-coupled device used to capture images, which is made possible by the technology invented by Navy veteran George E. Smith and Willard S. Boyle.
Credit: Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza, DOD
VIRIN: 250702-D-PM193-3003

CCDs are at the core of many technologies, including X-ray machines, digital cameras, scanners, image-guided surgeries, smartphones and deep-space telescopes. 

A C-shaped X-ray machine is in a warehouse being inspected by a soldier in a camouflage uniform.
Equipment Inspection
Army Sgt. Nicholas McKinley, a biomedical equipment specialist, inspects a C-Arm machine at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Feb. 24, 2025. This mobile imaging device utilizes X-rays to provide real-time images during surgical procedures at the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency's Medical Maintenance Operations Division. The technology used to capture an X-ray was invented by Navy veteran George E. Smith and Willard S. Boyle in 1969.
Credit: Army Staff Sgt. Nora Martinez
VIRIN: 250224-A-A4458-1003

Their invention helped build the foundation of the modern information society, said Gunnar Oquist, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, at the Nobel Prize award ceremony in 2009. 

Ironically, Smith and Boyle were working on semiconductor integrated circuits for a research and development company in Murray Hill, New Jersey, trying to create improved memory storage for computers when they came up with the idea for the CCD in less than one hour of brainstorming. 

Smith served in the Navy from 1948 to 1952. He was an aerographer's mate, which is a weatherman. 

Because he was a Korean War-era veteran, Smith used the GI Bill to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in physics. 

After earning a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1959, he went to work as a researcher and worked for the same development company until he retired in 1986. 

Smith, who was born May 10, 1930, in White Plains, New York, died May 28, 2025, in Waretown, New Jersey, at the age of 95. 

Boyle served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1943 to the end of World War II. He was an aircraft carrier-based Supermarine Spitfire pilot. 

After earning his doctorate in 1950 from McGill University in Montreal, Boyle taught physics for two years at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. 

In 1953, Boyle joined the development company where he and Don Nelson invented the first continuously operating ruby laser in 1962. The laser was used for a time by the military for rangefinders and for laser medicine. He also provided support for the NASA Apollo program, helping to select lunar landing sites. 

Boyle, who was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Aug. 19, 1924, died in Truro, Nova Scotia, May 7, 2011. 

A colorful galaxy in space, which looks like rust and clouds.
Tarantula Nebula
The NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope takes an image of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Jan. 24, 2025. The Hubble contains a charge-coupled device used to capture images in deep space. The technology invented in 1969 by Navy veteran George E. Smith and Willard S. Boyle makes this possible.
Credit: NASA
VIRIN: 250124-O-D0439-001

CCDs are still used today, but they have been joined by other types of image sensors, such as electron multiplying CCDs, commonly known as EMCCD, complementary MOS, known as CMOS, and scientific CMOS, or sCMOS.

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