Robert D. Maurer

Robert D. Maurer (1924 to 2025) was an American researcher at Corning Glass Works and a United States Army veteran who, with Donald Keck and Peter Schultz, developed fiber-optic wire able to carry thousands of times more information than conventional copper wire. In 1970 the three designed and produced the first optical fiber with optical losses low enough for wide use in telecommunications, holding light loss to 20 decibels per kilometer, a problem that scientists around the world had worked on for years without success. The breakthrough opened the way to commercial optical fiber and a revolution in telecommunications. More than ninety percent of United States long-distance traffic is carried on optical fiber, and over 800 million kilometers have been installed, nearly all of it using the original design of Maurer, Keck and Schultz.