Professor OU-YANG, Zhong-can
Prof. Zhong-can Ou-Yang, the 1993 AAA Winner, was cited for his
contribution to the application of liquid crystal theory to the study of liquid bilayers - the model systems of biomembranes. Based on the Helfrich spontaneous curvature model, he predicted theoretically the existence of ring-shape vesicles which was precisely affirmed by experiment and opened a new chapter in the field. Viewing the tilted chiral lipid bilayers as cholesteric liquid crystals he successfully explained the experimentally observed helical structures of the membranes.
Prof. Ou-Yang was born in Fujian, China.
He entered the Tsinghua University in 1963 but his undergraduate study was interrupted by the Culture Revolution. After college, he taught himself theoretical physics. In 1978, he was accepted by Tsinghua University for graduate study in
the physics department. He received his M.S. in Solid State Physics in 1981 and
Ph.D. in optics in 1984. He is now a Research professor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Academia Sinica, Beijing, China.
Selection Panel: Alfred Cho, Paul Chu, Bai-Lin Hao, T.D. Lee, S.C.C. Ting, T.T. Tsong, C.N. Yang.