Contents
Charles K. Kao
Establishing the feasibility of fibre-optic communication.
Low-loss fibres · Kao Foundation
- Born
- 4 November 1933
- Birthplace
- Shanghai
- Died
- 23 September 2018
More people
Charles K. Kao
Charles Kao was an electrical engineer whose work on low-loss glass fibres helped make modern optical communications possible.
Early life
Education
Moved from Shanghai to Hong Kong as a teenager, then studied electrical engineering in London and completed a doctorate at UCL.
Career
- 1960s
Telecommunications research
Worked at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in Harlow.
- 1966
Optical communication
Established how purified glass fibres could carry signals over long distances.
- Later career
University leadership
Served as vice-chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
- 2009
Nobel Prize
Received half the physics prize for optical communication.
Contributions
Low-loss fibres
Identified material purity as a key to practical fibre communication.
Kao Foundation
Co-founded an Alzheimer’s support organisation with his wife.
Beyond research
Family and interests
Married fellow engineer Gwen Wong in 1959. He enjoyed pottery and martial-arts novels.
Sources & photo credit
Biography and career ↗Biographical references ↗Additional biographical or research source ↗Original photograph. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
Photo: David Dobkin [1]. CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.