Moses H. W. Chan

Moses Hung-Wai Chan
Moses Hung-Wai Chan
Born (1946-11-23) November 23, 1946 (age 78)
Xi'an, China
NationalityAmerican
Alma materBridgewater College(BSC),
Cornell University(Ph.D.)
Known forResearch in Low temperature physics, on solid 4He.
AwardsFritz London Memorial Prize(1996)
Scientific career
FieldsCondensed matter physics, Low temperature physics
InstitutionsPenn State University
Doctoral advisorJohn Reppy

Moses Hung-Wai Chan (Chinese: 陳鴻渭; pinyin: Chén Hóngwèi) is a Chinese-American physicist who is Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University. He is an alumnus of Bridgewater College and Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1974 and was a postdoctoral associate at Duke University. He has been a professor at Penn State's University Park Campus since 1979.

Through the years, Chan's work has spanned many diverse topics.[1] For his numerous contributions to low-temperature physics, in 1996 he shared the prestigious Fritz London Memorial prize with Carl Wieman and Eric A. Cornell.[2] He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.[3]

Chan is known for the experimental discovery of evidence for a new supersolid quantum state of matter,[4][5] predicted theoretically in 1969 by Alexander Andreev and Ilya Liftshitz, and its subsequent refutation.[6] Other significant discoveries include the experimental observation of Critical Casimir effect[7] and the experimental confirmation of 2D Ising model.[8]

  1. ^ Complete list of publications. Archived 2006-09-06 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Fritz London Memorial Prize
  3. ^ List of active members by class, October 24, 2014
  4. ^ E. Kim and M. H. W. Chan (2004). "Probable Observation of a Supersolid Helium Phase". Nature. 427 (6971): 225–227. Bibcode:2004Natur.427..225K. doi:10.1038/nature02220. PMID 14724632. S2CID 3112651.
  5. ^ Nature story on a supersolid experiment
  6. ^ D. Y. Kim and M. H. W. Chan (2012). "Absence of Supersolidity in Solid Helium in Porous Vycor Glass". Physical Review Letters. 109 (15): 155301. arXiv:1207.7050. Bibcode:2012PhRvL.109o5301K. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.109.155301. PMID 23102323. S2CID 23590787.
  7. ^ R. Garcia and M. H. W. Chan (1999). "Critical Fluctuation-Induced Thinning of 4He Films near the Superfluid Transition". Physical Review Letters. 83 (6): 1187–1190. Bibcode:1999PhRvL..83.1187G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1187. S2CID 51372560.
  8. ^ H. K. Kim and M. H. W. Chan (1984). "An Experimental Determination of a Two-Dmensional Liquid-Vapor Critical Point Exponent". Physical Review Letters. 53 (2): 170–173. Bibcode:1984PhRvL..53..170K. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.53.170.