Willoughby Smith was a British electrical engineer who discovered the photoconductivity of selenium, the property by which the element's electrical conductivity increases when it is exposed to light. He made the discovery in 1866 while testing underwater telegraph cables for faults, and formally presented his findings to the Society of Telegraph Engineers in February 1873. The discovery underpinned the later invention of photoelectric cells, including the light sensitive cells used in the earliest television systems, and was recognized posthumously in 2017 with a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for the concept of opto-electric transduction.
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Discovered the photoconductivity of selenium, 1873, foundational to later photovoltaic and photoelectric technology.
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