space. It is also the technology that powers many digital cameras today. Smith said of their invention: "After making the first couple of imaging devices, we knew for certain that chemistry photography was dead." Eugene Gordon and Mike Tompsett, two now-retired colleagues from Bell labs, claim that its application to photography was not invented by Boyle. Boyle was Executive Director of Research for Bell Labs from 1975 until his retirement in 1979. Personal life In retirement he split his time between Halifax and Wallace, Nova Scotia. In Wallace, he helped launch an art gallery with his wife, Betty, a landscape artist. He was married to Betty since 1946 and had four children, 10 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren. In his later years, Boyle suffered from kidney disease, and due to complications from this disease, died in a hospital in Nova Scotia on May 7, 2011. Notes External links including the Nobel Lecture on December 8, 2009 CCD – an Extension of Man's Vision 1924 births 2011 deaths Canadian expatriates in the United States Canadian inventors Canadian Nobel laureates Canadian physicists Companions of the Order of Canada Deaths from kidney disease McGill University alumni Nobel laureates in Physics Draper Prize winners People from Amherst, Nova Scotia People from Cumberland County, Nova Scotia Royal Military College of Canada faculty Scientists at Bell Labs Royal Canadian Navy personnel of World War II