City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

268 CITY OF LIGHT
1956: First transatlantic telephone cable, TAT-1, goes into
operation. It uses coaxial cable to carry 36 voice
circuits.
Summer 1956: Curtiss suggests making glass-clad fibers by melting a
tube onto a rod of higher-index glass. Peters and
other Michigan physicists push plastic-clad fibers,
which Curtiss makes instead.
October 1956: Frederick H. Norton starts consulting with American
Optical on fiber development. Later he suggests
ways to make glass cladding.
October 1956: Curtiss and Peters describe plastic-clad fibers at Optical
Society of America meeting in Lake Placid,
New York. Kapany also presents a paper. Hicks attends
but does not give a talk.
December 8, 1956: Curtiss makes first glass-clad fibers by rod-in-tube
method; they are much clearer than plastic-clad fibers.
February 18, 1957: Hirschowitz tests first fiber-optic endoscope in a patient.
Early 1957: Hicks experiments with glass-clad fibers and fusing
many fibers into a rigid bundle, an idea suggested
by Norton.
May 1957: Hirschowitz demonstrates fiber endoscope to American
Gastroscopic Society.
Mid-1957: Kapany leaves Rochester to head group at Illinois Institute
of Technology Research Institute in Chicago.
Mid-1957: Image scrambler project ends after Hicks tells CIA
the code is easy to break. American Optical shifts
to developing faceplates, adding more people as
Todd-AO wide-screen movie project fades.
1957: Hirschowitz, Peters, and Curtiss license gastroscope
technology to American Cystoscope Manufacturers
Inc.
Late 1957–Early 1958: Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow outline principles
of laser operation. Gordon Gould starts work
on his own laser proposal.
Early 1958: Hicks develops practical fiber-optic faceplates for military
imaging systems.
1958: Hicks, Paul Kiritsy, and Chet Thompson leave American
Optical to form Mosaic Fabrications in Southbridge,
Mass., the first fiber-optics company.
1958: Alec Reeves begins investigating optical communications
at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories.
1959: Working with Hicks, American Optical draws fibers