Lights-out for Father of Fibre Optics

By Asia Samachar Team | UNITED STATES |

Dr Narinder Singh Kapany is certainly a giant amongst present day Sikhs. Badged as the Father of Fiber Optics, Kapany passed away today (4 Dec 2020). He was 94.

The man who bent light, the American physicist is renown for his work in fibre optics.

The pioneering fiber-optics researcher and entrepreneur coined the term ‘fibre optics’ in an article in Scientific American in 1960. He later went on to write the first book about the new field. His passion and zeal for fibre optics was clearly evident when he became the the new field’s most prominent researcher, writer, and spokesperson.

Kapany’s research and inventions have encompassed fibre-optics communications, lasers, biomedical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution monitoring. He has over one hundred patents, and was a member of the National Inventors Council

He completed his education at Agra University and Imperial College London, focusing on physics.

Kapany, the founding chairman of the Sikh Foundation and a trustee of the UC Santa Cruz Foundation, was also a Regents Professor at UC Santa Cruz from 1977 to 1983. In 1999, he endowed the Narinder Singh Kapany Chair in Optoelectronics at the Baskin School of Engineering.

He started his first company in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, in 1960.

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