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Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium

Date: Monday, April 15, 2002

Title: A Short History of Fiber Optic Communications

Speaker: Jeff Hecht

Abstract

The basic idea behind fiber optics, the principle of light guiding by total internal reflection, dates back to the 1840s, but modern fiber optics had to await the invention of the cladding more than a century later. The idea of optical communication emerged as the laser was developed in the late 1950s, and early efforts were concentrated on sending signals through the air. In 1966, Charles Kao proposed using fiber optics to link local telephone switching offices separated by about 10 kilometers. His idea took off after Corning Inc. made the first low-loss fiber in 1970. After several years of technology development, the first system demonstrations followed in the mid-1970s. Only in the late 1970s did developers turn to the long-haul backbone systems on land and sea that created the first fiber-optic boom. This talk will trace the rapid growth of fiber-optic technology and applications through these early years to the dramatic fiber-optic technology boom of the past several years and the economic turbulence that followed.

Speaker

Jeff Hecht is the author of City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics (Oxford University Press, 1999) and Understanding Fiber Optics (Prentice Hall, 4th edition 2002). He has covered fiber optics for 25 years, and written extensively on lasers and optical technology. He is currently a correspondent for New Scientist magazine and a contributing editor to Laser Focus World. He holds a B.S. in Electronic Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and is a member of the Optical Society of America, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the American Physical Society, and the National Association of Science Writers.


Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Jim Heaney


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov

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