Fiber Optic Essentials

Chapter 11 Fiber Optic Timeline

Fiber optics is often regarded as a recent development, perhaps because of

its role in the backbone of the Internet. Actually, the historical roots of this

technology stretch back to the Victorian era; it has only been within the

past few decades that diverse technologies such as high speed electronics,

semiconductor solid state lasers, and low loss glass optical fibers have

come together to form the fundamentals of modern optical communication

networks. There are several excellent references available which describe

the early development of this field in detail; for our purposes, we will

only note a few significant milestones along the way. The concept of a

global communications network, with all the associated concerns about

privacy, security, taxation, and electronic marketing scams, dates back

to the development of telegraph networks in the 1800s [1]. The notion

of using light as a communication medium may have been adapted from

even earlier signaling methods using bonfires, smoke signals, mirrors, or

telegraphs with movable arms; indeed, light guiding through water was a

well established phenomena at this time [2], although it was considered

little more than a parlor trick with no practical applications. Following the

development of the telephone, in 1880 Alexander Graham Bell proposed

a wireless communications technology using modulated sunlight which

he dubbed the photophone [3].

Despite the lack of commercial success for this product, the concept

of optical communication and the tools to make it a reality continued to

be pursued by many early pioneers in the field. All of the basic concepts

for optical fiber communication were outlines by C.W. Hansell as early

as 1927, in a patent designed to transmit images over bundles of glass

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