Charles K. Kao
(1933-2018)

Died aged 84

Sir Charles Kao Kuen GBM KBE FRS FREng (November 4, 1933 – September 23, 2018) was an electrical engineer and physicist who pioneered the development and use of fiber optics in telecommunications. In the 1960s, Kao created various methods to combine glass fibers with lasers in order to transmit digital data, which laid the groundwork for the evolution of the Internet. Kao was born in Shanghai; his family moved to Hong Kong when he was about 15. He grew up in Taiwan and Hong Kong before moving to London to study electrical engineering. In the 1960s, Kao worked at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, the research center of Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) in Harlow, and it was here in 1966 that he laid the groundwork for fiber optics in communication. Known as the "godfather of broadband", the "father of fiber optics", and the "father of fiber optic communications", he continued his work in Hong Kong at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and in the United States at ITT (the parent corporation for STC) and Yale University. Kao was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication". In 2010, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to fiber optic communications”. A permanent resident of Hong Kong, Kao was a citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States.

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