Oct 6 2009
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize 2009 in Physics for two scientific achievements that have helped to shape the foundations of today's networked societies. It has been awarded with one half to Charles K. Kao "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication", and the other half jointly to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor".
Born 1933 in China, British and US citizen, Charles Kuen Kao is affiliated to Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in the British town of Harlow, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1966, Charles K. Kao made a discovery that led to a breakthrough in fiber optics. He carefully calculated how to transmit light over long distances via optical glass fibers. With a fiber of purest glass it would be possible to transmit light signals over 100 kilometers, compared to only 20 meters for the fibers available in the 1960s. The first ultrapure fiber was successfully fabricated just four years later, in 1970. Today optical fibers make up the circulatory system that nourishes our communication society.
Willard Sterling Boyle (born 1924 in Canada, Canadian and US citizen) and George Elwood Smith (born 1930 in USA, US citizen), both of Bell Laboratories at Murray Hill in the US sate of New Jersey, invented in 1969 the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD (Charge-Coupled Device). The CCD technology makes use of the photoelectric effect. By this effect, light is transformed into electric signals. The challenge when designing an image sensor was to gather and read out the signals in a large number of image points, pixels, in a short time.
The prize amount is 10 million kronor (US$1.4 million) and the prize ceremony will take place in Stockholm on 10 December.