Two physicists who co-invented the CCD image sensor have been rewarded with a share of this year's Nobel Prize for Physics. Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith developed the charge-coupled device in 1969 while working at Bell Laboratories, producing the world's first solid-state video camera just a year later. Each receives a quarter share in the $1.4 million prize.
Press Release:
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009
6 October 2009: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 with one half to
Charles K. KaoStandard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and Chinese University of Hong Kong"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. SmithBell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor"
The masters of light
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded for two scientific achievements that have helped to shape the foundations of today’s networked societies. They have created many practical innovations for everyday life and provided new tools for scientific exploration. 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. Kao's enthusiasm inspired other researchers to share his vision of the future potential of fiber optics. 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. These low-loss glass fibers facilitate global broadband communication such as the Internet. Light flows in thin threads of glass, and it carries almost all of the telephony and data traffic in each and every direction. Text, music, images and video can be transferred around the globe in a split second.
If we were to unravel all of the glass fibers that wind around the globe, we would get a single thread over one billion kilometers long – which is enough to encircle the globe more than 25 000 times – and is increasing by thousands of kilometers every hour.
A large share of the traffic is made up of digital images, which constitute the second part of the award. In 1969 Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invented the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD (Charge-Coupled Device). The CCD technology makes use of the photoelectric effect, as theorized by Albert Einstein and for which he was awarded the 1921 year's Nobel Prize. 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 CCD is the digital camera's electronic eye. It revolutionized photography, as light could now be captured electronically instead of on film. The digital form facilitates the processing and distribution of these images. CCD technology is also used in many medical applications, e.g. imaging the inside of the human body, both for diagnostics and for microsurgery.
Digital photography has become an irreplaceable tool in many fields of research. The CCD has provided new possibilities to visualize the previously unseen. It has given us crystal clear images of distant places in our universe as well as the depths of the oceans.
Fonte: Dpreview
Três cientistas que contribuíram para o desenvolvimento das tecnologias que suportam a fotografia digital e as redes de fibra óptica partilham este ano o Nobel da Física.
Charles K. Kao , recebe o galardão pelo seu trabalho sobre a transmissão da luz em fibra óptica , enquanto Willard S. Boyle e George E. Smith por terem inventado o sensor CCD, um semicondutor que converte a luz em milhões de pontos (ou pixéis), que compõe a imagem.
De acordo com a Real Academia Sueca , os três galardoados são norte-americanos, sendo que K. Kao também possui nacionalidade britânica e Willard S. Boyle canadiana.
Os investigadores irão receber um prémio monetário no valor de dez milhões de coroas suecas (mais de €957 mil), sendo que metade vai para K. Kao, um diploma e, claro, um convite para a estarem presentes na cerimónia de entrega em Estocolmo, Suécia, a 10 de Dezembro.Net à velocidade da luz
Charles K. Kao, que nasceu em Shangai e vive na Grã-Bertanha, foi distinguido pela sua descoberta de 1966 através da qual mostrou como transmitir luz através de longas distâncias recorrendo a cabos de fibra óptica, que acabariam por se tornar na infra-estrutura das modernas redes de comunicações que servem de suporte, por exemplo, à Internet.
Números
Boyle e Smith inventaram em conjunto o "olho" da câmara fotográfica digital. Os dois cientistas trabalham nos Laboratórios Bell em Nova Jersey, EUA, conceberam um sensor que consegue transformar a luz em milhões de pontos, ou pixéis, de numa fracção de segundo.
Mas o CCD (Charged-Couple Device ), está hoje presente noutros tipos de equipamentos como por exemplo, os delicados instrumentos cirúrgicos.
Segundo a Academia Boy e Smith "inventaram a primeira tecnologia de imagem bem sucedida usando um sensor digital, o CCD. A tecnologia CCD usa o efeito fotoeléctrico, tal como foi teorizado por Albert Einstein, e pelo qual foi premiado em 1921 com o Nobel".
"Revolucionaram a fotografia, na medida em que a luz pode agora ser captada electronicamente, dispensando, assim, a tradicional película fotográfica", lembrou o Academia.
Fonte: Expresso
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