The Surprisingly Interesting History of Fiber-Optic Wire

A fiber optic cable is a type of cable that is comprised of many tiny strands made of glass or plastic (more on this later). They are an essential part of modern internet infrastructure. Fiber optic cables can transmit voice, images, and other data at about 70 percent of the speed of light. It’s hard to beat that! Generally, they are used in internet infrastructure these days. However, they are also often used in internal networks, military equipment, space-related equipment, and more! If information needs transferring, you can bet that engineers at least consider fiber-optic wire as an option.

Yet while fiber optics uses are varied and help us with our work, recreation, and more, most of us don’t know where they came from. We don’t know their general makeup or where the technology might be going. It’s important to have at least a basic understanding of the technology that enables our daily life. Therefore, let’s look more in-depth at fiber optic wire and its history.

What’s a Fiber Optic Wire Made of?

A fiber optic cable, explained simply, is made of many thin strands of coated glass or plastic fibers. Each of these fibers is just a bit wider than the width of a human hair and measures about 8 microns. Information is coded on light pulses and then transmitted along these strands. Many of these strands act in tandem to provide the massive bandwidth and speed fiber optic cables are known for. Note they are usually encased in something else to protect them and prevent them from getting bent or broken easily. However, the core is coated glass (silica) strands.

There are different types of fiber optic wires, each with advantages, disadvantages, and quirks. However, the key components and concepts remain the same. Some might be more suited for the outdoors or the indoors. Some might be larger than others. In general, though, these distinctions are made by the casing of the cable as well as their intended bandwidth.

The Timeline of Fiber-Optic Wires

Fiber optic wires and the study of fiber optics have been around for much longer than most people think, at least in some form. Therefore, let’s go over the notable achievements in the field and significant advancements in fiber optics:

1854 – John Tyndall demonstrated to the Royal Society that light could be conducted through a curved stream of water. This point is a foundation of the study of fiber optics. The experiment he used is something you can recreate for yourself!

1880 – Alexander Graham Bell invented the photophone. The device transmitted a voice signal on a beam of light. It focused sunlight on a mirror, and then the speaker would talk into a part that would use the sound vibrations to vibrate the mirror. The receiver would have a detector that picked up the vibrations in the light beam. The receiving device then decoded the vibrations back to sound. In some ways, it was like a telephone. However, it was limited heavily by weather and interference.

In the same year, William Wheeler experimented with and invented pipes with a reflective coating. These would transmit light from a central emitter. 

While neither the pipes nor the photophone caught on, both were advancements toward the eventual study of fiber optics.

1888 – Bent glass rods were used by Roth and Reuss (both physicians) in Vienna to illuminate body cavities. The hope was to make diagnosis and operation easier.

Shortly after, French Engineer Henri Saint-Rene used glass rods to try and guide light images. One could think of it as an early try at creating something like a television.

1898 – In some ways echoing the world of Roth and Reuss, American David Smith filed a patent for a dental illuminator that utilized a curved glass rod.

1920s – John Logie Baird patented the idea of utilizing transparent rods to transmit images in another attempt to create television (which had been conceived and prototyped at this time using different technology). Clarence W. Hanswell patented a similar idea, but for facsimiles. Both are examples of light being used to transmit more information or light being controlled and bent.

1930s – In 1930, Heinrich Lamm became the first person to transmit an image through optical fibers. The image was a light bulb filament of poor quality, but the breakthrough was massive. Unfortunately, while Lamm hoped to use the technology for medical purposes, he did not have the chance to do so due to the rise of Nazi Germany and Lamm's need to flee the country.

1954 – Charles Townes and Columbia University colleagues developed the “maser.” Not to be confused with laser, maser stands for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” 

Meanwhile, Abraham Van Heel (Dutch Scientist) and Harold H. Hopkins (British Scientist) wrote separate papers on imaging bundles. While Hopkins concerned himself with bundles of unclad fibers, Van Heel talked about simple bundles of clad fibers. Van Heel’s cladding using transparent materials with a lower refractive index helped reduce the interference between fibers. This was vital, given that one of the major problems of the time was interference and getting lower light or signal loss. 

1958 – We get lasers, introduced by Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow, to demonstrate that masers could operate in optical and infrared regions. Lasers became an efficient source of light. 

1961 – Elias Snitzer conceived of single-mode fibers. These fibers would have a core so tiny that it could carry light with one waveguide mode. While it could be used for medical applications (looking inside people), the fact that it had a light loss of one decibel per meter meant that it couldn’t be realistically used for communications. It was estimated that such a fiber for communications could not have light loss greater than 10 or 20 decibels per kilometer. This was a significant problem in fiber optics for the time.

1964 – The problem of light loss was theoretically solved in a paper by Charles Kao and Hockham. They demonstrated that the light loss could be heavily reduced by creating better glass with fewer impurities. However, no such glass had been widely available yet.

1970 – Corning Glass researchers Robert Maurer, Donald Keck, and Peter Schultz invented fiber optic wire (or “Optical Waveguide Fibers”) after experimenting with fused silica. This fused silica is extremely pure, has a high melting point, and has a low refractive index. All these qualities make it fantastic for communications and solves many of the problems previously found by researchers. The resulting fiber could carry 65,000 times more information than copper wire and used light waves to transmit information to be decoded at the destination rapidly. This is the birth of fiber optic wire and cables as we know them and the realization of Charles Kao’s ideas.

1973 – Bell Laboratories developed a modified chemical vapor deposition process. This heated chemical vapors and oxygen to form an ultra-transparent glass. This glass could be used to make low-loss optical fiber. Just as importantly, it could be mass-produced. This removed many previous limitations regarding the cost and setup of fiber communications networks. While there might have been some tweaks and improvements over the years, this process is still used to manufacture fiber optics today.

1975 – In a vote of confidence in the technology and a true test, the United States government decided to link the computers at NORAD headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain with the use of optical fiber cable. This is done to reduce interference.

1977 – This year, the first optical telephone communication system was installed in Chicago. It was installed 1.5 miles under downtown, and each fiber carried the equivalent of 672 voice channels. It would be the first of many such systems designed to facilitate communication for the average person on such a vast level.

Over the 1970s and 1980s, we would see the expansion of such systems, and telephone companies would invest heavily in fiber infrastructure to rebuild and revolutionize their communications infrastructure.

1991 – Desurvire and Payne demonstrate optical amplifiers. These amplifiers are built into the fiber itself. As a result, the all-optic system could carry 100 times more information than cable using electronic amplifiers.

Additionally, photonic crystal fiber was developed. This fiber guides light using diffraction from a periodic structure. This is as opposed to total internal reflection. This meant that power could be transferred more efficiently. This led to a more efficient and effective fiber optic cable.

2000 – By this point, the Maurer, Keck, and Schultz-Designed cables have been installed worldwide. More than 80 percent of the world’s long-distance traffic was carried over optical fiber cables at this point. More than 25 million kilometers of cable has been installed across the world. While few people had fiber internet at this time, the groundwork was laid, and people relied on fiber without even knowing it.

The Bottom Line

You wouldn’t be the first person to ask what fiber optics is. Yet what does the study of fiber optic sciences mean to you? Fiber-optic wires are responsible for how our world is connected today, whether you use fiber internet or not. It’s important to know where they came from, how they’re used, and what one might be able to expect from them. The study of fiber optics has come a long way, but breakthroughs and advancements exist. We hope that you will keep on top of the subject if you’re interested, and we hope you can access its benefits as soon as possible.