Three scientists who harnessed the power of light in ways that turned the Internet into a global phenomenon and launched the digital camera revolution were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.
Charles Kao， who was born in Shanghai， China， and has both U.K. and U.S. citizenships， received half the total prize money of 1.4 million. Dr. Kao was lauded for a breakthrough that led to fiber-optic cables， the thin glass threads that carry a vast chunk of the world's phone and data traffic.
The other half of the prize is shared by Willard Boyle and George Smith of Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill， N.J.， for work that led to the charge-coupled device， or CCD. The CCD sensor turns light into electrical signals and eliminates the need for capturing images on film， a far more cumbersome and expensive approach. Drs. Smith and Boyle are American； Dr. Boyle also holds Canadian citizenship.
The Nobel committee described the three physicists as "masters of light".
Optical fibers， developed in the 1950s， had great theoretical potential. Because light has a very high frequency， it can carry a lot more data than microwaves or radio waves， which have much lower frequencies. However， there was a big hurdle： Impurities in the glass fibers of the time absorbed much of the light. For every meter traveled about 20% of the light was lost.
In 1966， Dr. Kao， while working at Standard Telephones & Cables Ltd.'s laboratory in Harlow， England， tackled this problem.
"His insight was that if you could get rid of the impurities， you could transmit light over many kilometers，" says Jeff Scheck， who authored a history of fiber optics in 1999.