George E. Smith and Willard Boyle introduced the charge-coupled device, which stores information as electric charge packets in movable potential wells at a semiconductor surface. Changing electrode potentials transfers a packet to a neighboring storage region. Their 1970 paper describes electric charge creation, transfer and detection, and proposes both information-processing and imaging applications. The same electrical mechanism can therefore shift a stored signal through a device or carry light-generated electric charge toward a detector.[ref]
Charge Coupled Semiconductor Devices by Willard Sterling Boyle and George Elwood Smith. Bell System Technical Journal 49, 587–593 (1970), opening description
A physicist researching semiconductor devices.[ref]
Professional profile of George Elwood Smith. Independent professional identity
Portrait of George E. Smith
. US Embassy Sweden. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic., via Wikimedia Commons. Source. Articles by others on the same topic
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George E. Smith is an American physicist and inventor, best known for his work in the field of optics and imaging. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009, along with Willard Boyle, for their invention of the charge-coupled device (CCD), a technology that has had a profound impact on the fields of photography, astronomy, and various scientific applications.