Kao, Charles

Charles Kao, in full Charles Kuen Kao, Pinyin Gao Kun, (born November 4, 1933, Shanghai, China—died September 23, 2018, Hong Kong), 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. Smith, who won for their work in inventing the charge-coupled device (CCD). Kao held dual citizenship in Great Britain and the United States.

Kao received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of London in 1957. That same year he went to work for Standard Telephones and Cables, a British subsidiary of the American telecommunications company ITT. In 1960 he transferred to ITT’s Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in Harlow, England. Kao received a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of London in 1965. In 1966 he and British engineer George Hockham proposed that fibres made of ultra-pure glass could transmit light for distances of kilometres without a total loss of signal. In 1970 the first practical fibre-optic cable was successfully produced, and by the end of the 20th century much of the world’s telecommunications was travelling through fibre-optic cable.

In 1970 Kao left ITT to spend four years at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1974 he rejoined ITT as chief scientist of its electro-optical products division in Roanoke, Virginia. He later became ITT’s director of engineering in that division, and from 1983 to 1987 he was executive scientist and director of research at the ITT Advanced Tech Center in Shelton, Connecticut. From 1987 to 1996 he was vice-chancellor and president at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kao then became chairman and chief executive officer (1996–2001) of Transtech, a Hong Kong fibre-optic company, and in 2000 he became chairman and chief executive officer of ITX Services, a technology transfer company.

Kao was diagnosed with Alzheimer disease, a degenerative brain disorder, in 2004. He and his wife, Gwen Kao, founded the Charles K. Kao Foundation for Alzheimer’s Disease Limited in 2010 to promote awareness about and care for those with the disease in Hong Kong.