SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, Ph.D. MIT (1969)

Education

Research Interests

• The discovery of unusual properties including anomalous light scattering and correlations between the orientational elasticity and short-range positional order near the nematic-smectic-A-smectic-C multicritical point in binary liquid- crystal mixtures.
• The first application of electron diffraction to study the bond-orientational order in thin free-standing liquid-crystal films to obtain information about the scaling of the higher harmonic order parameters, and to provide the first confirmation of the existence of a hexatic phase as predicted by the theory of defect-mediated melting in two dimensions.
• The discovery of some unique layer by layer surface-freezing and orientational epitaxy phenomena on the surface of hexatic liquid crystals undergoing phase transitions.

Selected Publications

1. "New Hexatic Liquid Phase Observed in Lyotropic Thin Films", C. Y. Chao, M. T. Hsu, W. J. Hsieh, J. T. Ho, and I. J. B. Lin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 247801 (2004).
2. "Multiple Electron Diffraction and Two-Dimensional Crystalline Order in Liquid-Crystal Thin Films", C. Y. Chao, T. C. Pan, C. F. Chou, and J. T. Ho, Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 125504 (2003).
3. "Unusual Thickness-Dependent Heat-Capacity Anomalies in Free-Standing Hexatic Liquid-Crystal Films", C. Y. Chao, C. R. Lo, P. J. Wu, T. C. Pan, M. Veum, C. C. Huang, V. Surendranath, and J. T. Ho, Phy. Rev. Lett. 88, 085507 (2002).
4. "Unusual Thickness-Dependent Behavior and Anticlinic Coupling in Chiral Smectic Liquid-Crystal Films", C. Y. Chao, C. R. Lo, P. J. Wu, Y. H. Liu, D. R. Link, J. E. Maclennan, N. A. Clark, M. Veum, C. C. Huang, and J. T. Ho, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4048 (2001).
5. "Multiple-Step Melting in Two-Dimensional Liquid-Crystal Films", C. F. Chou, A. J. Jin, S. W. Hui, C. C. Huang, and J. T. Ho, Science 280, 1424 (1998).