Brief introduction of Gao Kun, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics.

According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Gao Kun has made a breakthrough in "the transmission of light in optical fiber is used for optical communication", and he will win half of this year's physics prize, * * * 5 million Swedish kronor (about 700,000 US dollars); Boyle and Smith invented the semiconductor imaging device-charge coupled device (CCD) image sensor, and will share the other half of this year's physics prize.

Kuen Kao

Chinese name: Gao Kun.

English name: Charles K.Kao

Gender: male

Date of birth: 1933

Birth place: Jinshan County, Jiangsu Province (now Jinshan District, Shanghai)

Current residence: China, Hongkong and the United States live alternately.

Physicist with dual British and American nationality, honorary professor of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1933165438+1October 4th was born in Jinshan, Shanghai, and lived in the French Concession. My father is a lawyer of the International Court of Justice, and my younger brother is Gao Ai. Grandfather Gao Chuiwan was a famous poet, revolutionary and an important member of Nanshe in the late Qing Dynasty.

Before entering school, my father hired a teacher to go home and teach Gao Kun and Gao Yun to read the Four Books and Five Classics. At the age of 65,438+00, Gao Kun studied at the World School (today's international school), where he had to learn English, French and Chinese. The school hired scholars studying in France to teach, and Gao Kun began to contact the personnel culture outside China.

Gao Kun lived in a three-story house when he was a child, and the third floor became his childhood laboratory. As a child, Gao Kun was very interested in chemistry. He used to make fire extinguishers, fireworks, fireworks and photographic paper, trying to make bombs. The most dangerous thing is to mix red phosphorus powder with potassium chlorate, add water to make a paste, then mix it with wet mud and rub it into balls. Air-dried and thrown into the street, it exploded as expected. Fortunately, he didn't hurt passers-by. He fell in love with the radio and successfully installed five or six vacuum tube radios.

The whole family moved from 65438 to 0948 in Taiwan Province Province. 1949 immigrated to hong kong and entered St. Joseph's college. After graduating from high school, he was admitted to the University of Hong Kong. However, since HKU didn't have a department of electrical engineering at that time, he went to woolwich Institute of Technology in East London (now university of greenwich, England) to study. 1957 graduated from woolwich university of technology majoring in electronic engineering. 1965 received a doctorate in electrical engineering from Imperial College London, London, affiliated to University of London.

From 65438 to 0957, Gao Kun joined ITT as a doctor and worked as an engineer in its British subsidiary Standard Telephone and Cable Co., Ltd. 1960, he entered the European Central Research Institute-Standard Telecom Experiment Co., Ltd. in ITT, where he worked for ten years, and his position was promoted from research scientist to research manager. It was during this period that Professor Gao Kun became a pioneer in the field of optical fiber communication.

Since 1957, Gao Kun has been engaged in the application research of optical fiber in communication field. In 1964, he proposed to use light instead of current and glass fiber instead of wire in telephone network. In 1965, in a paper based on a large number of experiments, it is proposed that long-distance information transmission with timely glass fiber will bring a revolution in communication industry. When the loss of glass fiber drops to 20 dB/km, optical fiber communication will be successful. In 1966, it is proposed that optical fiber can be used as communication medium in standard telephone laboratory. Gao Kun has obtained 28 patents in electromagnetic waveguide and ceramic science (including optical fiber manufacturing). Thanks to his achievements, more than10 billion kilometers of optical cables provide data for offices and families all over the world through broadband Internet at lightning speed.

Because of his special contribution in the field of optical fiber, he won the Valentin Medal, Lieberman Award and Optoelectronic Award, and was called "the father of optical fiber".

1957 ~ 1960 was the engineer of standard telephone and cable company, 1960 ~ 1970 was the chief research engineer of standard telecom laboratory.

From 1970 to 1974, Professor Gao Kun worked as a professor and lecturer in the Department of Electronics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and returned to ITT on 1974. At that time, the optical fiber field entered the pre-production stage. He worked as the chief scientist in the photoelectric products department in Anaker, Virginia, USA, and was later promoted to the engineering director.

1982 was appointed as the first "ITT executive scientist" by ITT company because of its excellent research and management ability, mainly working in the advanced technology center in Connecticut. 1985 worked in the SEL research center in Germany. At the same time, he is also a part-time professor and researcher at Lambl College of Yale University. 1986 was appointed as the director of cooperative research. He is also doing research in the standard telecommunications laboratory under the standard telephone cable.

Gao Kun returned to Hong Kong from England and became the third president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. During his tenure at 1987 to 1996, he brought a large number of talents to the Chinese University, making the academic structure and knowledge structure of the university more reasonable. In the exchanges and cooperation with the mainland scientific and technological circles, he advocated "gradually realizing cross-strait contacts."

Gao Kun was elected as a foreign academician of China Academy of Sciences on 1996. Because of his outstanding contribution, Purple Mountain Observatory of China Academy of Sciences named an asteroid with the international number "3463" discovered by19812.3 as "Gao Kun Star".

At present, he is the chairman and chief executive officer of Hong Kong Chaoke Service Group Co., Ltd., devoted to the development of telecommunications and information. 1966, Gao Kun published a paper entitled "optical frequency dielectric fiber surface waveguide", creatively put forward the basic principle of optical fiber application in communication, and described the structure and material characteristics of insulated optical fiber needed for long-distance and high-information optical communication. Simply put, as long as the purity and composition of glass are solved, optical fibers can be made of glass, thus transmitting information efficiently. After the idea was put forward, some people called it incredible and others praised it. However, in the debate, Gao Kun's idea gradually came true: the application of optical fiber made of timely glass became more and more extensive, which set off a revolution in optical fiber communication around the world. With the successful appearance of 198 1 the first optical fiber system, Gao Kun's reputation as "the father of optical fiber" spread all over the world.

Gao Kun has also developed an optical fiber communication auxiliary subsystem. He has done a lot of research in many fields, such as the structure of single-mode optical fiber, the strength and durability of optical fiber, optical fiber connectors and couplers, and the characteristics of diffusion balance, and these research results are the key to successfully transmitting signals from megabits per second to tens of thousands of meters without amplification. British International Telephone and Telegraph Company (1957)

Standard Communication Laboratory affiliated to British International Telephone and Telegraph Company (1960)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Professor and Lecturer, Department of Electronics (1970- 1974)

Client (1987- 1996)

British international telephone and telegraph company

Chief scientist (1974)

Engineering president and administrative scientist (1982);

President of research affairs (1986)

Academician of National Academy of Engineering (1990)

Academician of Taiwan Academia Sinica (1992)

Chairman and CEO of Hong Kong Hi-Tech Bridge Co., Ltd. (1996-) Stewart Brand Medal of Franklin Institute, USA (1977)

Ranking Trust Ranking Award (1978)

Maurice H. Lieberman Memorial Award of American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1978)

L M Ellison international prize of Ericsson foundation in Sweden (1979)

Gold Medal of Communication and Electronics Society of American Armed Forces (1980)

American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers A. Grin M. Bell Medal (1985)

Marconi International Scientist Award of Marconi Foundation (1985)

Honorary Doctor of Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (1985)

Columbus medal of Genoa, Italy (1985)

Japan Communication and Computer Promotion Foundation Communication and Computer Award (1987)

Faraday Medal of the British Institution of Electrical Engineers (1989)

American physical society International Prize for New Materials (1989)

Doctor of Science Honoris, University of Seysas, UK (1990)

Academician of National Academy of Engineering (1990)

Honorary Doctor, Sōka Gakkai University (199 1)

Honorary Doctor of Engineering, University of Graz, UK (1992)

SPIE Gold Award (1992)

Academician of Taiwan Academia Sinica (1992)

British Imperial Commander's Medal (1993)

Honorary Doctor of Science, Durham University, UK (1994)

Gold Award for Outstanding Engineering Achievement of World Association of Engineering Organizations (1995)

Honorary Doctor of First Service, Griffith University, Australia (1995)

The 1st12nd Japan International Award (1996)

Honorary Professor of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (1997)