Willoughby Smith

Willoughby Smith (6 April 1828, in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk – 17 July 1891, in Eastbourne, Sussex) was an English electrical engineer who discovered the photoconductivity of the element selenium.

For his test circuit, he needed a semi-conducting material with a high resistance and selected selenium rods for this purpose.

Smith described his research in a paper presented at the 12 February 1873 meeting of the Society of Telegraph Engineers as "Electrical Properties of Selenium and the Effect of Light Thereon".

A brief summary was published as the "Effect of Light on Selenium during the passage of an Electric Current" in the 20 February 1873 issue of Nature.

[1] In 2017 his work on selenium was recognized with a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for "Concept of Opto-Electric Transduction" by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.