U.S. physicist known for his work on thermionic vacuum (electron) tubes.

Chaffee received the Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1911. His dissertation established the “Chaffee gap”—a method of producing continuous oscillations for long-distance telephone transmissions. He taught at Harvard (1911–53) and in 1940 succeeded G.W. Pierce as director of the Cruft Laboratory. He was also co-director of the Lyman Laboratory of Physics (1947–53) and director of the Laboratories of Engineering, Science, and Applied Physics (1948–53).

Chaffee's research focussed on electric oscillations, vacuum tubes, and optics, and he secured a number of patents for radio devices. During World War II he directed research leading to improvements in radar. He also did early work on weather control, using airplanes in 1924 to break up clouds by means of electrically charged grains of sand.