Researched
Optical Fiber
Light in thin glass threads carries data with enormous capacity: optical fiber is the backbone of the internet.
Open in the interactive tree →Charles Kao and George Hockham predicted in 1966 that ultra-pure glass can guide light with low loss (Nobel Prize 2009); in 1970 Corning made the first fiber with low enough attenuation. Wavelength multiplexing today lets a single fibre carry many terabits per second.
Prerequisites
- Transatlantic telegraph cable1866Fibre cables such as TAT-8 succeeded the copper transatlantic cables
- Telephone1876
- Laser1960
- Semiconductor Laser Diode1962Compact semiconductor lasers are the light source of fibre links