Narinder Singh
| Narinder Singh Kapany | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
October 31, 1926 Faridkot, Punjab |
| Residence | United States |
| Nationality | Indian, American |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions |
Agra University Ordnance Factories Board Imperial College of Science British Royal Academy of Engineering Optical Society of America American Association for the Advancement of Science Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Stanford University |
| Alma mater |
Agra University Imperial College London |
| Known for | Pioneering work on Fiber optics |
| Notable awards |
Pravasi Bharatiya Samman The Excellence 2000 Award FREng (1998) |
Narinder Singh Kapany (Punjabi: ਨਰਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ) (born 31 October 1926) is an Indian-born American Sikh physicist known for his work in fibre optics. He was named as one of the seven 'Unsung Heroes' by Fortune in their 'Businessmen of the Century' issue (1999-11-22). He is also known as "Father of Fiber Optics". The term fibre optics was coined by Singh Kapany in 1956. He is a former IOFS officer.
Kapany was born to a Sikh family in Moga, Punjab, and was educated in India, graduating from Agra University. He served briefly as an Indian Ordnance Factories Service officer, before going to Imperial College London in 1952 to work on a Ph.D. degree in optics, which he obtained in 1955.
At Imperial College, Kapany worked with Harold Hopkins on transmission through fibers, achieving good image transmission through a large bundle of optical fibers for the first time in 1953. Optical fibers had been tried for image transmission before, but Hopkins and Kapany's technique allowed much better image quality than could previously be achieved. This, combined with the almost-simultaneous development of optical cladding by Dutch scientist Bram van Heel, started the new field of fibre optics. Kapany coined the term 'fibre optics' in an article in Scientific American in 1960, wrote the first book about the new field, and was 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 has received many awards including 'The Excellence 2000 Award' from the USA Pan-Asian American Chamber of Commerce in 1998. He is an International Fellow of numerous scientific societies including the British Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
...
Wikipedia