George E. Smith

• Name — George E. Smith • Birth Name — George Elwood Smith • Born — 10 May 1930 • Birthplace — White Plains, New York, U.S. • Died — 28 May 2025 • Place of death — Barnegat Township, New Jersey, U.S. • Education — * University of Pennsylvania (grad. graduated 1955) • University of Chicago (grad. graduated 1959) • Known for — Charge-coupled device • Awards — * Stuart Ballantine Medal (1973) • IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award (1974) • C&C Prize (1999) • Edwin H. Land Medal (2001) • Charles Stark Draper Prize (2006) • Nobel Prize in Physics (2009) • Progress Medal (2015) • Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2017) • Fields — Physics • Workplaces — Bell Labs • Thesis Title — The Anomalous Skin Effect in Bismuth • Thesis Url — https: www.proquest.com/docview/301893432/ • Thesis Year — 1959 • Doctoral Advisor — Andrew Werner Lawson

George Elwood Smith was born on May 10, 1930, in White Plains, New York. After serving in the United States Navy for four years and taking courses at the University of Miami, Smith qualified as a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania in 1952, graduating with a B.S. in 1955. He then became a teaching assistant at the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. in 1959 with a thesis on the anomalous skin effect in bismuth.

From 1959 until his retirement in 1986, Smith worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where he led research into novel lasers and semiconductor devices. During his tenure, Smith was awarded dozens of patents and eventually headed the VLSI device department. In 1969, Smith and Willard Boyle invented the charge-coupled device (CCD), for which they have jointly received the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1973, the 1974 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award, the 2006 Charles Stark Draper Prize, and the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Both Boyle and Smith were avid sailors who took many trips together. After retirement, Smith sailed around the world with his life partner, Janet, for seventeen years, eventually giving up his hobby in 2003 to "spare his 'creaky bones' from further storms". He resided in the Waretown section of Ocean Township, Ocean County, New Jersey. Smith died at his home in Barnegat Township, New Jersey, on May 28, 2025, at the age of 95.

• Year — Organization — Award — Citation • 1973 — Franklin Institute — Stuart Ballantine Medal — "Invention of charge-coupled device structure for imagesensing, serial memory and signal processing." • 1974 — IEEE — IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award — "For the invention of the charge-coupled device and leadership in the field of MOS device physics." • 1999 — NEC C&C Foundation — C&C Prize — "For the Invention of the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD)." • 2001 — * Optical Society of America * IS&T — Edwin H. Land Medal — "For the invention and development of the charge-coupled device, a contribution that has had extraordinary impact on image creation and utilization." • 2006 — National Academy of Engineering — Charles Stark Draper Prize — "For the invention of the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a light-sensitive component at the heart of digital cameras and other widely used imaging technologies." • 2009 — Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences — Nobel Prize in Physics — "For the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor." • 2015 — Royal Photographic Society — Progress Medal — — • 2017 — Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation — Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering — "For their work on Digital Imaging Sensors."

• Year — Organization — Type • 1983 — National Academy of Engineering — Member