George E Smith, callsign AA2EJ is a radio amateur from Barnegat, New Jersey, USA. He was one of the three scientists who jointly were awarded the 2009 Nobel prize for physics. The other radio amateur is Joe Taylor W6JT who in 1993 was awarded the Nobel prize for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation. Taylor is also well-known for his WSJT amateur radio software used for receiving weak signals such as in earth-moon-earth and meteor scatter communication.
Smith was awarded the prize for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit − CCD sensor. He will share the prize money with two other recipients: Charles K. Kao, of Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in the United Kingdom and Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Willard S. Boyle, of Bell Laboratories. Boyle and Smith invented the CCD − which has provided the electronic eye in almost all areas of photography.
Each recipient will receive a diploma and a medal. They will share the $10-million prize money; Kao will receive 50%, while Smith and Boyle will each receive 25%.
Kao was recognised by the prize committee for his groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication. His discoveries paved the way for optical fibre technology, used for almost all telephony and data communication today.
The CCD was invented in about an hour over lunch. Both Smith and Boyle worked at New Jersey's Bell Labs. Their development was the first practical way of letting a light-sensitive silicon chip store an image and then digitise it. In short, it is the basis of today’s digital camera. The most amazing thing about the invention is how quickly Boyle and Smith came up with the design. With Bell Labs threatening to take the funds from their department and transfer the money to other research, Boyle had to come up with a competing semiconductor design. He got together with Smith, and within an hour, they came up with the idea and sketched it all out on a blackboard.
At the time Boyle wrote on his website "I was challenged to create a new kind of computer memory. That afternoon, I got together with George Smith and brainstormed for an hour on a new kind of semiconductor device, drawing a few sketches and equations on a blackboard. We called it a charge-coupled device: a ‘CCD’. When the shops at Bell Labs made up the device, it worked exactly as expected, much to the surprise of our colleagues."
Smith said that he knew the CCD was under consideration for the Nobel Prize, "but we didn’t know exactly if, or when, it would happen. Research that wins the Nobel Prize is often done many years beforehand. In my case, this was 40-year old research. The prize committee wanted to make sure the research had stood the test of time!"
Initially, no one predicted that the CCD would become indispensable to the field of astronomy. However, it is precisely thanks to digital technology that the wide-angle camera on the Hubble space telescope can send the most astonishing images back to Earth. Today the Kepler satellite has been equipped with a mosaic sensor of 95 megapixels, and the hope is that it will discover Earth-like planets around stars other than the sun. Early on, astronomers realised the advantages of the digital image sensor. It spans the entire light spectrum, from X-ray to infrared. It is a thousand times more sensitive than photographic film. Out of 100 incoming light particles a CCD catches up to 90, whereas a photographic plate or the human eye will only catch one. In a few seconds, light from distant objects is gathered – a process that previously would have taken several hours. The effect is also directly proportional to the intensity of the light – the larger the amount of light, the higher the number of electrons.
Smith and his wife Janet, AA2EI, are keen yachtsmen. They have sailed round the world for 17 years. "While we were on our boat, we used amateur radio, especially in the South Pacific. Janet was the principal radio operator. With our radio, we could keep track of other boats in the area. Over in the Southwest Pacific, there are shore stations that provide weather forecasts every day on the ham radio bands. We would listen for these, as it was such a tremendous help for us as sailors."
Talking to American Radio Relay League audio news, Taylor said that amateur radio has always attracted individuals who want to understand and exploit nature’s laws. "These are essential characteristics for first-rate scientists, as well."
