Corning Incorporated on March 23 launched a year-long anniversary celebration of the company’s world-changing invention of low-loss optical fiber. Corning’s 1970 breakthrough made the theoretical promise of fiber-optic technology a reality and revolutionized the communications industry.
Corning kicked off the celebration at OFC/NFOEC 2010 in San Diego. In honor of the occasion, the Corning researchers responsible for the discovery – Dr. Robert Maurer, Dr. Peter Schultz and Dr. Donald Keck – were in attendance.
“The invention of low-loss optical fiber in 1970 helped launch the communications age,” said Martin J. Curran, senior vice president and general manager, Corning Optical Fiber. “Today, optical-fiber innovation is as vibrant as ever. Over the past four decades, Corning has built on its groundbreaking invention by continuing to develop new fiber technologies for submarine, long-distance, enterprise, and fiber-to-the-home networks that enable faster, better and more cost-effective communication.”
In 1970, Drs. Maurer, Schultz and Keck reported the first optical fiber with loss below 20 decibels per kilometer, which demonstrated the feasibility of fiber optics for telecommunications. Corning followed that breakthrough by inventing processes to manufacture optical fiber in mass scale, enabling the deployment of low-cost, high-capacity optical transport systems that have become an integral part of our daily lives.
Today, optical fiber transmits data, voice and video at speeds unimaginable in 1970. Corning currently offers optical fibers with a loss level of less than 0.17 dB/km, and researchers continue to develop new innovations that will enable fiber to go faster and farther than ever before.
About Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated is the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics. Drawing on more than 150 years of materials science and process engineering knowledge, Corning creates and makes keystone components that enable high-technology systems for consumer electronics, mobile emissions control, telecommunications and life sciences. The company’s products include glass substrates for LCD televisions, computer monitors and laptops; ceramic substrates and filters for mobile emission control systems; optical fiber, cable, hardware and equipment for telecommunications networks; optical biosensors for drug discovery; and other advanced optics and specialty glass solutions for a number of industries including semiconductor, aerospace, defense, astronomy and metrology.
