Willard Boyle

Willard Sterling Boyle was born on August 19, 1924, in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and moved to Quebec with his parents when he was about 2-years-old. He was homeschooled by his mother until the age of 14, when he began his formal education at Lower Canada College in Montreal. == 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. He was made director of Space Science and Exploratory Studies at the Bell Labs subsidiary Bellcomm in 1962, providing support for the Apollo space program and helping to select lunar landing sites. He returned to Bell Labs in 1964, working on the development of integrated circuits. Boyle was Executive Director of Research at Bell Labs from 1975 until his retirement in 1979. == Charge-coupled device ==

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. 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 he 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 Memberships Chivalric titles == Notes ==