Illustration of the US physicist George Elwood Smith (born 1930). After receiving his doctorate from University of Chicago, USA, in 1959, Smith joined Bell Labs, New jersey, where he stayed for the rest of his career. In 1969 Smith and his colleague Willard Boyle invented the charge-coupled device (CCD). This device is used extensively in astronomy, and in other sciences where high-quality digital imaging is needed. Boyle and Smith were jointly awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work.