Published : 06/10/2024

On October 6, 2009, Professor Charles Kuen Kao (高錕), the former Principal of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and known as the "father of fibre optics", was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for that year.

Charles Kao has the deepest connections with Hong Kong among all Chinese winners of the Nobel Prize.

In 1949, Kao moved to Hong Kong with his family and studied at St. Joseph's College.

By 1970, Kao, who had achieved significant academic success, returned to Hong Kong to serve as a professor and department head of the newly established Department of Electronics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He even took up the position of University principal in 1987.

Kao's research journey began in the 1960s, when he worked as an engineer at Standard Telephones and Cables Limited, a subsidiary of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT) in the UK.

The most important paper in Kao's fibre optics research was "Dielectric-Fibre Surface Waveguides for Optical Frequencies" published in July 1966.

Kao suggested the use of quartz-based glass fibres for long-distance information transmission and pointed out that once the fibre's attenuation drops to 20 decibels per kilometre, fibre optic communication can be successful.