Charles Kuen Kao was the visionary who pioneered the use of a single mode dielectric (glass) optical fibre waveguide for long distance communications. In the 1960s, Kao created various methods to combine glass fibres with lasers in order to transmit digital data. Charles Kao (born November 4, 1933, Shanghai, China—died September 23, 2018, Hong Kong) was a physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2009 for his discovery of how light can be transmitted through fibre-optic cables. He shared the prize with physicists Willard Boyle and George E. His groundbreaking contributions earned him the title of "The Father of Fiber Optic Communications", and his innovations continue to power the high-speed internet, global telecommunications, and other modern technologies. Charles Kao was born in Shanghai, China, in 1933, to a family with a strong. Rare film of Charles Kuen Kao, pioneer of optical fibre communications, experimenting with a prototype single mode fibre at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in 1966. In 1966, in a lab in Essex, electrical engineer Professor Sir Charles Kuen Kao (1933–2018) made a discovery that. Affiliation at the time of the award: Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, United Kingdom; Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Prize motivation: “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication” Prize share: 1/2 The.