Father of Fiber Optics and the Godfather of Broadband

📌 Sir Charles Kuen Kao is a Chinese-born Hong Kong electrical engineer and physicist who pioneered the development and use of fiber optics in telecommunications.

📌 In the 1960s Kao began his pioneering work in the realisation of fiber optics as a telecommunications medium.

📌 Kao a preferred single mode for long-distance optical communications instead of using multi-mode systems.

📌 When Sir Charles K. Kao first proposed that glass fibers could be used for long-distance information transfer to replace copper wires he was widely disbelieved amongst his peers.

📌 His research indicated that the high search-loss of existing fibre optics arose from impurities in the glass rather than from an underlying problem with the technology itself.
📌 He stated that the impurity of glass material is the main cause for the dramatic decay of light transmission inside glass fiber and such impurity could be removed.

📌 Kao began to precisely measured the attenuation of light with different wavelengths in glasses and other materials.

📌 This led to a worldwide study and production of high-purity glass fibers

📌 Kao discovered that the high purity of fused silica (SiO2) made it an ideal candidate for optical communication

📌 His ideas eventually revolutionised the whole communication technology and industry.