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 University College 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 the 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.
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. Optical fiber made of timely glass has been widely used, which has 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.
As we all know, Gao Kun was the first person who proposed that optical fiber materials be used to transmit light beam signals to establish communication. As early as A.D. 1960, when Gao was still studying in Britain, people knew that information could be transmitted by digital or analog means. At that time, it was thought that the transmission efficiency of light through gas or glass was expected to be high, but the problem that the signal would be seriously attenuated could not be overcome. From 65438 to 0965, Gauss made detailed experiments on various non-conductor fibers. According to his analysis, beam communication is feasible when the attenuation rate of optical signals can be less than 20 decibels per kilometer. He further analyzed the absorption, scattering, bending and other factors, and concluded that the coated time-dependent glass may meet the attenuation requirements and reach the waveguide. This key research achievement has promoted the research and development of GSM series glass fiber waveguides.
Gao Kun is the eighth China scientist to win the Nobel Prize in Science after,,,,, Chu. 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.
In addition, he is also the chairman and chief executive officer of Hong Kong Chuangke Service Group Limited, devoted to the development of telecommunications and information. Gao Kun completed his English autobiography "An Era and a Trend: Memoirs of Gao Kun" in 2002 or before, and Xu Diqiang's Chinese translation "A Trend and a Broad Coast-Gao Kun's Self-Report" was published in 2005. In early 2003, Gao Kun was diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease and received treatment. However, it was not until 2009 that Gao Kun won the Nobel Prize in Physics that it was widely reported. His wife, Huang Meiyun, said in an interview with Ming Pao that Gao Kun "has a bad memory" and sometimes forgets where his keys or books are. However, her illness is very mild, and she has no problem in knowing people and finding the way. Gao Kun often walks around the campus with his wife's help, and most students of the Chinese University of Hong Kong are lucky enough to often see the happy scenes of their husband and wife supporting each other and caring for each other.
On June 6th, 2009, Gao Kun was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics by the Science Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy. On February 8th, 65438, Gao Kun's speech "The Sound of Drum Sand Delivers Explanation" was written by his wife and four professors of CUHK according to the content of "Tide is flat and the shore is wide", and was published by her wife. 65438+February 10, Gao Kun was specially arranged at the Nobel Prize ceremony, which exempted him from the etiquette of going to Taichung to receive the prize for three times. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden made an exception and went to him to present the prize. According to the Royal Academy of Sciences, Gao Kun has made a breakthrough in "the transmission of light in optical fiber for optical communication", and he will receive half of the prize of the 2009 Physics Prize, * * * 5 million Swedish kronor (about 700,000 US dollars).