The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 jointly to Charles K. Kao, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for their contributions to scientific research.
Half of the award goes to Charles K. Kao of the Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and Chinese University of Hong Kong “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication.”
The other half goes to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA “for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor.” The charge-coupled device (CCD) transforms light patterns into useful digital information and is the basis for many forms of imaging, including cameras, camcorders and satellite surveillance.
[Site: KVA.se]
