George E. Smith, AA2EJ, Wins Nobel Prize:

Around 5:30 on the morning of October 6, George E. Smith, AA2EJ, of Barnegat, New Jersey, got a phone call that changed his life: He had just found out he had won the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2009/index.html "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit -- the CCD sensor http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/ccd-inventors-awarded-nobel-prize-40-years-on/." Smith will share the prize money with two other recipients: Charles K. Kao, of Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in the United Kingdom and Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Willard S. Boyle, of Bell Laboratories. Each recipient will receive a diploma http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/diplomas/, a medal http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medals/ and a document confirming their share of SEK 10 million http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/amounts.html (about $1.4 million); Kao will receive 50 percent, while Smith and Boyle will each receive 25 percent of the monetary award.

Kao was recognized by the prize committee for his "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication." His discoveries paved the way for optical fiber technology, used for almost all telephony and data communication today. Boyle and Smith invented a digital image sensor -- the CCD -- that has become an electronic eye in almost all areas of photography.

"My wife Janet, AA2EI, and I sailed around the world for 17 years," Smith told the ARRL. "While we were on our boat, we used Amateur Radio, especially in the South Pacific. Janet was the principal radio operator. With our radio, we could keep track of other boats in the area. Over in the Southwest Pacific, there are shore stations there that provide weather forecasts every day on the ham radio. We would listen for these, as it was such a tremendous help for us as sailors."

The CCD -- invented in about an hour over lunch when Smith and Boyle worked at New Jersey's Bell Labs -- was, according to Wired Magazine http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/ccd-inventors-awarded-nobel-prize-40-years-on/, the first practical way to let a light-sensitive silicon chip store an image and then digitize it. In short, it is the basis of today's digital camera. According to Wired, the "most amazing thing about the invention" is that Boyle and Smith came up with the design so quickly. With Bell Labs threatening to take the funds from their department and transfer the money to other research, Boyle had to come up with a competing semiconductor design. He got together with Smith, and within an hour, they came up with the idea and sketched it all out on a blackboard.

"One morning in October, 1969," Boyle wrote on his Web site http://www.flickr.com/photos/cstmweb/3884295553/, "I was challenged to create a new kind of computer memory. That afternoon, I got together with George Smith and brainstormed for an hour or so on a new kind of semiconductor device, drawing a few sketches and equations on a blackboard. We called it a charge-coupled device: A 'CCD.' When we had the shops at Bell Labs make up the device, it worked exactly as expected, much to the surprise of our colleagues."

When asked by the ARRL how he felt about winning the Nobel Prize, he exclaimed, "I feel great! Even though there's a lot of nonsense to go through with it, it's worth it and winning it does wonders for your ego. Aside from the initial shock and having to go through piles of mail, e-mail and returning telephone calls, I know that will calm down. As for the long-range future, I'm getting many invitations to give talks. Next year, I've been invited to speak at a major conference in Seoul, South Korea, another in Portland Oregon and another in Switzerland. I've been invited to France to give a talk, China, too. We need to sit down with a calendar and figure it all out. Having a Nobel makes a big dent in your lifestyle."

Smith told the ARRL that he knew the CCD was under consideration for the Nobel Prize, "but we didn't know exactly if, or when, it would happen. Research that wins the Nobel is often done many years beforehand. In my case, this was 40 year old research. The Prize Committee wants to make sure the research has stood the test of time.

"Amateur Radio has always attracted individuals who want to understand and exploit nature's laws," fellow Nobel Laureate Joe Taylor, K1JT, told the ARRL. "These are essential characteristics for first-rate scientists, as well. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics honors the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit -- the CCD sensor used in digital cameras, the Hubble Space Telescope and many other scientific and consumer devices. It was no great surprise to learn that one of the Laureates, George Smith, is also a radio amateur." Taylor was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1993/ "for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation."

Next month, Smith will travel to Stockholm, Sweden for the award ceremony on December 10. It is certain that his picture will be taken scores of times by the international media, made possible through the technology that he and Boyle pioneered. Click here http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/11/03/11182/?nc=1 for more information, including how a CCD works.

Source:

The ARRL Letter

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