Bell Labs

More than any other institution, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs has helped weave the technological fabric of modern society. Its scientists and engineers have made seminal scientific discoveries, have launched technological revolutions that have reshaped the way people live, work and play, and have built the most advanced and reliable communications networks in the world.

Today, as part of the innovation engine behind Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs designs products and services that are at the forefront of communications technology, and conducts fundamental research in fields important to communications. Guided by both experience and vision, Bell Labs is helping Alcatel-Lucent take the lead in shaping tomorrow's broadband networks powered with service intelligence at every network layer.

Awards & Recognition

An extensive array of awards has been bestowed upon Bell Labs and its researchers, including six Nobel prizes, nine U.S. Medals of Science, seven U.S. Medals of Technology, two Draper prizes, an Emmy, a GRAMMY, and an Academy Award.

Internationally recognized as the world's preeminent industrial research facility and as a center of scientific and engineering excellence, few institutions have had as great an impact on modern society as Bell Labs. Our scientists and engineers have earned thousands of awards, including:

• 6 Nobel Prizes in Physics shared by 11 scientists
• 9 U.S. Medals of Science
• 12 U.S. Medals of Technology
• 2 Draper Prizes
• 1 GRAMMY¨ Award
• 6 Marconi International Fellowship Awards
• 7 C&C Prizes shared by 12 scientists and engineers
• 28 IEEE Medal of Honor winners

2006 Awards and Achievements

Richart Slusher, director of Quantum Information Research and recent Bell Labs Fellow, is the 2006 recipient of the Max Born Award, presented by the Optical Society of America (OSA). The award honors Max Born and is presented annually to a person who has made outstanding contributions to theoretical or experimental physical optics.

Herwig Kogelnik, Bell Labs Adjunct Photonics Systems Director, was awarded the 2006 Okawa prize by the Okawa Foundation for Information and Telecommunications of Japan. Dr. Kogelnik was recognized for his seminal contributions to the field of optical communications.

Hock Ng, a Bell Labs materials scientist focusing on gallium-nitride-related semiconductors, was selected to receive two Young Investigator Awards -- the Charles W. Tobias Young Investigator Award of The Electrochemical Society and the first annual Young Investigator Award from the North American Molecular Beam Epitaxy (NAMBE) board.

Aref Chowdhury, a Bell Labs researcher in the field of optical physics, was selected by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) as one of eighty-one engineers from around the United States to participate in the 12th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium.

Ashok Maliakal, a Bell Labs materials scientist studying design and development of nano-structured organic and hybrid materials for advanced electronic applications, was named as one of Technology Review magazine«s TR35, a list of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35. Maliakal continues the trend of including at least one Bell Labs scientist among the winners since the list«s inception in 1999.

Dr. Willard Boyle and Dr. George Smith, both former researchers at Bell Labs, received one of the highest honors in engineering, the 2006 National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) Charles Stark Draper Prize, for their invention and development of the charge-coupled device, or CCD. This award honors engineers whose accomplishments have significantly impacted society. CCD imaging, which transforms patterns of light into useful electrical information, is the basis for many forms of modern imaging. Today the most noticeable impact is its universal use in digital cameras, video cameras, bar code readers, and image scanners such as copy machines. Both Boyle and Smith were members of the Semiconductor Components Division at Bell Labs and began their seminal work on the CCD in 1969.