Although the capability of dielectric fibre to guide optical energy has been known for centuries, it has been only since about 1970 that this capability has begun to be exploited for long distance transmission of information. Before that time, the absorption of materials used to fabricate fibres was too high to consider the long distance application. In 1972 sufficient purity of optically transparent materials was obtained so that the transmission losses of laboratory fibres were lowered to 4 dB/km. Because of these advances and the ability of fibres to transmit extremely high data rates, industries (and the military) throughout the world are heavily investing in the vast potential of this "new" technology.

Date Published: 20 October 1977
PDF: 14 pages
Proc. SPIE 0122, Advances in Laser Engineering I, (20 October 1977); doi: 10.1117/12.955791

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0122:
Advances in Laser Engineering I
Malcolm L. Stitch; Eric J. Woodbury, Editor(s)