HISTORY OF FIBER OPTICS Flashcards
(23 cards)
two engineers at Standard Telecommunication
Laboratories in England wrote a paper which in essence started
the race to develop optical fiber for communications
1966
“It is foreseeable that glasses with a bulk loss of about __________ will be obtained, as iron impurity concentration may be reduced to 1 part per
million
20 dB/km at around 0.6 micron
Nobel Prize for Physics 2009 ________ for
“groundbreaking achievements concerning the
transmission of light in fibers for optical communication“
Sir Charles K. Kao
Work was mainly done at Standard Telecommunication
Laboratories (STL) in Harlow, England in 1960s, with
groundbreaking predictions for use of glass fibers for
telecommunications in
1966
has its roots back in the Roman
times when they started drawing glass into fibers
Fiber optic technology
the ‘’optical telegraph” was invented. A series of
lights were placed on towers, in order to transmit messages
from a place to another
1970s
Daniel Collodon and Jaques Babinet, both physicists,
managed to prove that light can be directed along jet of water
in the fountain displays
1840
John Tyndall, also a physicist, took it one step further.
He proved that light could travel through a curved stream of
water; therefore a light signal could be tilted
1854
Alexander Graham Bell created the optical telephone
system, called photophone
1880
the Viennese doctors Roth and Reuss, used curved
rods to illuminate body cavities
1888
in an early attempt at television,
Henry Saint-Rene designed a system of bent glass rods for
guiding light images
1895
John Logie Baird patented the idea of using
arrays of transparent stems to transmit images for
television
1920s
Heinrich Lamm was the first person
to transmit an image through a batch of optical fibers
1930s
Hogler Moeller applied for a Danish patent on fiber
optic imaging in which he proposed cladding glass or plastic
fibers with a low index, transparent material but was
refused because of the Braid’s patent.
1951
Elias Snitzer published a theoretical description of
single-mode fibers, with a core so small that it could carry
light with only one waveguide mode. He was able to
demonstrate that a laser (light amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation) directed through a thin glass fiber
can be sufficient for medical applications. For
communication applications, the light loss became too
great.
1961
Standard Communication Laboratories in England
proved that light loss of existing glass fiber could be
diminished by removing impurities
1964
Corning Glass Works made single mode fibers with
attenuation less than 20dB/ km
1970
Bell Laboratories developed a modified vapor
deposition process that can be mass-produced into a low-loss
optical fiber. This process remains, to this day, the standard
for fiber optic cabling manufacturing
1973
the first live telephone traffic through fiber optics
happens in Long Beach, California.
1977
telephone companies started to use fiber
optics to rebuild their communication infrastructure.
1980s
Emmanuel Desurvire invented the erbium-doped
amplifier which reduced the cost of long-distance fiber
systems
1986
the first transatlantic telephone cable went into
operation.
1988
Desurvire and Payne demonstrate amplifiers were
built into the fiber optic cable itself. Also in 1991, the
photonic crystal fiber was developed
1991
