Boyle and Smith at Bell Labs.

The co-inventor of the charge-coupled device, CCD, Willard S. Boyle has died. His invention altered the way we capture and share images forever. What you see is what you get, thanks to Boyle and his partner George E. Smith.

The CCD is a device that is smaller than a dime and…

[...] is the eye behind every picture on the Internet, every digital and video camera, every computer scanner, copier machine and high-definition television.

Its work extends from supermarket barcode readers to the Hubble Space Telescope, from fax machines to the cameras that roamed Mars and the oceans’ floor.

It works by taking advantage of what is called the photoelectric effect, which was explained by Einstein and brought him the Nobel in 1921. The photoelectric effect is the name given to the observation that when light is shined onto a piece of metal, a small current flows through the metal.

The CCD devised by Dr. Boyle and George E. Smith captures light and stores it, then displays it by converting it into electrical charges.

In this video from 1978, Boyle and Smith describe how their invention, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009, functions.