Robert D. Maurer

Robert D. Maurer (born July 20, 1924 in Arkadelphia , Arkansas ) is an American physicist and fiber optic pioneer.

Maurer studied at the University of Arkansas , first chemical engineering, then physics. This was interrupted by military service in World War II , during which he was badly wounded by a land mine in Europe and received the Purple Heart . In 1948 he received his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Arkansas and in 1951 he received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (measurement of the second sound in liquid helium). From 1952 to 1989 he was at Corning Glass Works , where he headed the Applied Physics group from 1960 and became a Research Fellow in 1978 .

Around 1966 he heard about fiber optic pioneering work by Charles Kuen Kao in England and it was decided to start developing at Corning Glass itself. Thanks to newly developed manufacturing processes, it was possible to keep the losses below 20 decibels per kilometer, so that it could be used in optical communications. Donald Keck and Peter C. Schultz were also involved .

In 1999 he received the Charles Stark Draper Prize , in 2000 the National Medal of Technology , in 1978 the Industrial Physics Prize of the American Physical Society (APS) and the IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award , and in 1989 the International Prize for New Materials of the APS and in 1979 the Swedish Ericsson Telecommunications Prize. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Institute of Physics as well as an IEEE Fellow and received the 1987 John Tyndall Award . In 1993 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame . In 1980 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Arkansas.

Web links

• Robert D. Maurer. In: Inductees. National Inventors Hall of Fame.