March 2002
Intermediate to advanced
260 pages
9h 58m
English
By 1950, the challenge to scientists studying optical fiber transmission was not whether light could carry information, but whether a glass conduit could be developed that was pure enough to keep losses below 20 dB/km. A flexible glass-coated glass fiber served as a suitable transmission medium for the fiberscope, but losses remained unworkably high for communication applications. Scientists persevered.
In 1970, Corning scientists Robert Maurer, Donald Keck, and Peter Schultz developed a fiber with a measured attenuation of less than 20 dB/km. It was the purest glass ever made, and the breakthrough led to the commercialization of fiber optics for communication applications. Corning's success was the result of a new process ...