THE INVENTION OF THE DIGITAL - CAMERA - NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS 2009.

BOYLE, W. S. & G. E. SMITH.

Charge Coupled Semiconductor Devices.

New York, American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 1970. 8vo. Original full green cloth. Volume 49, 1970 of "The Bell System Technical Journal". Library stamp to front free end-paper. Minor bumping to extremities. A nice and clean copy. Pp. 587-593. [Entire volume: XLII, (2), 918, (1) pp.].

First edition of Boyle and Smith's seminal and exceedingly important paper on the CCD-chip, in which information could be stored as electrons in a semiconductor. The invention created the technical background for digital cameras which revolutionized astronomy. It's invention launched entirely new industries and markets and is widely used in devices as diverse as digital cameras, video cameras, bar code readers, security monitoring, medical endoscopy, modern astronomy, video conferencing, optical technology, and high capacity WDM transmission-systems have enabled pictures to travel around the world within seconds.

"In this paper we describe a new semiconductor device concept. Basically it consists of storing charge in potential wells created at the surface of a semiconductor and moving the charge (representing information) over the surface by moving the potential minima." (From the introduction to the present article).
Boyle and Smith imagined that it could be used as a device for storage of memory, an early hard disk, however, they soon discovered that as a memory device it was not very useful. By applying Einstein's photoelectric effect, they illuminated the chip, thereby creating electrons. They discovered it could be used as storing light-structures; taking pictures.

"At the heart of all astronomical instruments is some form of detector to convert electromagnetic energy into an electrical signal. [...] the dominant detector in modern astronomy is the charged-coupled device (CCD)." (McLean, Ian S. Electronic imaging in astronomy: detectors and instrumentation, 2008, p. 241).
"The invention of the charged-coupled deviceby Boyle and Smith has had remarkable impact [...]. CCDs due to their speed and ruggedness together with adequate sensitivity and speed have replaced conventional TV Vidicon cameras [...]. As a result the technology of CCDs has advanced rapidly." (Jha, Sudhanshu. Perspectives in optoelectronics, 1995, p. 351).

In January 2006, Boyle and Smith were awarded the National Academy of Engineering Charles Stark Draper Prize, and in 2009 they were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, for their work on the CCD.

Order-nr.: 43025