Optical fibres and CCD sensors take the Nobel Prize for Physics 2009

Institute of Physics News

6 October 2009

The inventor of optical fibres, the veins of modern communication, and the two physicists behind the development of Charge-Coupled Device (or CCD) have received the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics.

The development of optical fibres - fine threads of glass that can transmit light - for communication made great strides when Charles Kuen Kao, while working at the Standard Telephones and Cables laboratories in Harlow, England, realised that light loss could be kept down to acceptable levels by removing impurities in the glass.

The 3 million kilometres of optical fibre that has been laid in the UK is what brings broadband internet connection to UK households and offices and, in recognition of Kao’s key developments, he takes half of this year’s prize.

The second half of the 2009 prize has gone to two physicists, Willard Sterling Boyle and George Smith, from Bell Labs in New Jersey, US, for developing the CCD. CCD is capable of turning light into electric signals, thereby eliminating the need for film as images can be captured on the device, making the digital camera possible.

Dr Robert Kirby-Harris, Chief Executive at the Institute of Physics (IOP), said, “Ours is the age of information and images and no two things better symbolise this than the internet and digital cameras. From kilobytes to gigabytes, and now to petabytes and exabytes, information has never been so free-flowing or, with the development of CCD, so instantly visual. These incredible inventors who have been responsible for transforming the world in which we live very much deserve their prize.”

Professor Sir Peter Knight, Senior Principal at Imperial College London on Kao, said, “I am delighted that Kao has been recognised in this way. Kao was the first to understand the impurities in glass and how to get rid of them. He had already spotted the communications opportunities, and therefore the great distances light could travel, while others were still thinking in metres. He was a revolutionary and his work is a fine example of how fundamental research can have a massive impact on our everyday lives.”

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