2009 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Charles K. Kao, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 6 October 2009.

The citation

Half of the prize goes to Charles K. Kao "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication". Half of the prize goes jointly to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor".

The laureates

Charles K. Kao was born in 1933 in Shanghai, China, and is affiliated with Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow and Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Willard S. Boyle was born in 1924 in Amherst, Canada, and is affiliated with Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill. George E. Smith was born in 1930 in White Plains, the United States, and is affiliated with Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill.

Why it matters

Kao showed how light could travel long distances through glass fibre, the basis of today's internet cables. Boyle and Smith invented the CCD, the image sensor used in digital cameras. Kao studied in London and did his key work in Harlow, Essex.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.