Welcome to the Glass Age

77 that internet communication, today a pillar of the global society, is only possible because of lasers and optical fibers. Not by chance, 2015 was celebrated by the United Nations as the International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies. In this frame, one must also recognize the fundamental role that glass plays among the relevant materials for photonics. Glass is a complex material with unique properties, and technological demands now require greater use of its properties in relation to light, transparency being only the most common and most evident. Again, it is not by chance that the General Assembly of United Nations unanimously approved the resolution declaring 2022 the International Year of Glass. This Chapter aims at briefly reviewing the role that glass (or, better, the many types of glass that the scientific research has synthesized and characterized) is playing in the generation, transmission and displaying of information. Glass and optical fiber Fiber optics represents a field of significant daily consequence where light and glass are intimately linked. Indeed, all modern means of communications and data / information technologies are enabled by hair-thin strands of glass that