Heilmeier, a native of Philadelphia's Mayfair section who was the first in his family to attend college, led a group that built the first prototypes in the 1960s.
Yet these display screens, commonly abbreviated as LCDs, did not really take off until years later in the hands of other manufacturers, especially in Japan. Flat TV screens using this technology had to await the development of accompanying circuitry and did not become commonplace until the last decade.
Heilmeier left RCA in 1970, disappointed that the company did not commit more resources to LCDs. But he went on to successful careers in government and the private sector. In the former case, as head of the Pentagon's research arm, he oversaw development of the forerunner of the Stealth fighter.
The Draper Prize comes with $500,000, to be split among the four recipients. First awarded in 1989, it has been given to engineers who developed the technology behind such modern marvels as digital cameras, fiber optics, and the Internet.
Liquid crystals, which at certain temperatures are in a state somewhere between solid and liquid, were discovered in the 1880s. But it was not until the 1960s that RCA engineers explored them as a way to manipulate light.
By the end of 1964, Heilmeier's group had discovered the crystals would turn milky white when voltage was applied - the result of an effect he called the dynamic scattering mode. That allowed for production of prototype wristwatches soon thereafter, with milky white numbers on a black background - as opposed to the black-on-gray and full-color varieties common today - but company officials kept the technology under wraps until 1968.
They ultimately declined to push the new technology, keeping a focus on the traditional fatter TVs that relied on cathode-ray tubes.
