Willard Boyle

Willard Boyle won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009 for his work developing the CCD (charge-coupled device) sensor, which is the light-sensitive microchip behind many digital cameras, scanners, and medical imaging devices. After his education and teaching at the Royal Military College, Boyle joined the research staff of Bell Labs in 1953. There, in addition to the CCD sensor, he invented the first laser to be used in medicine, and he helped to choose sites on the moon for NASA’s manned landings. Updated 2010