1941-

American physicist who, with Robert Maurer and Peter Schultz, helped make fiber optics practical and useful. Early optical fibers were fragile and suffered from high signal loss. Keck, Maurer, and Schultz found that doping the glass with titanium and, later, germanium, markedly improved the strength and optical properties of the fibers. This, in turn, made it possible to transmit signals farther and with greater accuracy, paving the way for their use in telecommunications and data transmission.