The Path from Research to Human Benefit

TIMELINE

1900 - Max Planck initiates a new field of science, quantum physics, by demonstrating mathematically that matter radiates energy in discrete bundles, which he calls quanta.
1905 - Albert Einstein builds on Planck's theory to explain the photoelectric effect, showing that light is made up of packets, later called photons. In 1921, Einstein earned the Nobel prize for this breakthrough.
1913 - Niels Bohr formulates a model of the atom in which electrons occupy specific orbits, or energy states, around the nucleus, determined by the electrons' energy levels.
1917 - Einstein identifies a phenomenon called stimulated emission.
1951 - Between 1951-1953, Charles Townes at Columbia University Radiation Laboratory discovers how to harness stimulated emission to generate a focused microwave beam. He names his invention the maser, for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Townes shared the 1964 Nobel prize for this work with two Soviet physicists, N.G. Basov and A.M. Prokhorov, who had come up with a similar idea.
1958 - Townes and Arthur Schawlow of Bell Laboratories publish their theory of how stimulated emission would work with much shorter wavelengths, including those of visible light, giving rise to the term laser, for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.
1960 - Theodore Maiman of Hughes Aircraft Company builds a laser using synthetic ruby.
1962 - Research groups at General Electric, IBM, and the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT report semiconductor laser action using gallium arsenide (GaAs).
1963 - Herbert Kroemer at the University of Colorado proposes to reduce energy requirements for lasers and decrease heat production by creating a semiconductor "sandwich" with a thin active layer set between layers of other material.
1966 - Charles Kao and George Hockham at Standard Communications Laboratories in England publish a paper demonstrating theoretically that light loss in existing glass fibers could be decreased dramatically.
1970 - Morton Panish and Izuo Hayashi of Bell Laboratories demonstrate a semiconductor laser that operates continuously at room temperature. Donald Keck, Peter Schultz, and Robert Maurer at Corning Glass Works report the creation of optical fibers that meet the predictions made by Kao and Hockham.
1976 - Between 1976-1977, fiber-optics trials, based on designs and fiber preparation processes developed at Bell Labs, are initiated in telephone systems in Atlanta and Chicago.
1984 - AT&T fiber-optic cable enters service, connecting major cities in the Boston-Washington corridor.
1988 - The first transatlantic fiber cable is laid, using glass so transparent that amplifiers are spaced about 40 miles apart.
1991 - Emmanuel Desurvire at Bell Laboratories along with David Payne and P.J. Mears at England's University of Southampton, demonstrate optical amplifiers--built into the fiber cable itself.
1996 - All-optic fiber cables are laid across the Pacific. Complete round-the-world installation is expected by 1997.