Dr. Xichao Zhang is an Associate Professor (Research) at Waseda University. He also worked at Shinshu University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), and the University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. from Shinshu University in 2018.
Dr. Zhang specializes in computational magnetism and spintronics, with a special focus on emergent dynamic phenomena in magnetic systems that have connections to soft matter physics. He has spent more than ten years exploring various spin textures in magnetic materials. Some specific systems that Dr. Zhang works on include bulk chiral magnets, frustrated magnets, ultrathin magnetic films, synthetic antiferromagnetic multilayers, and low-dimensional magnetic nanostructures. He has also been investigating functional device applications, such as memory and logic gates, that utilize spin textures as nonvolatile information carriers. Recently, Dr. Zhang’s research particularly centers on the dynamics and functionalization of interacting magnetic quasiparticles on artificially structured surfaces and interfaces. He also works on interdisciplinary topics that bridge magnetism with soft matter, active matter, and fluid sciences. Examples include skyrmion-based fluidic systems and magnetic quasiparticles that behave like active matter.
Since 2013, Dr. Zhang has published more than 40 first and co-first author papers in peer-reviewed academic journals, including Nature Physics, Nature Electronics, Nature Communications, PNAS, Physical Review Letters, Nano Letters, and Applied Physics Letters. He has also coauthored over 80 peer-reviewed academic papers through international collaborations with leading universities and industry organizations. His Google Scholar citations are over 14500, with an h-index of 50. He has received several awards and fellowships for his academic work, including the Waseda Research Award (2025), the MSJ Distinguished Paper Award (2023), the JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship (2020), the CUHKSZ Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship (2019), and several Provincial Science and Technology Progress Awards. Since 2020, he has been ranked among the world’s top 2% scientists by Stanford University.
Dr. Zhang is also an Editor of the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (JMMM). He serves as reviewer for prestigious journals and internationally peer-reviewed grants. He is a senior member of the IEEE, a member of the American Physical Society, and a member of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society. In his spare time, he enjoys outdoor photography and reading historical nonfiction.
Follow Dr. Zhang on X: @xichaozhang
>>>SIMULATIONS<<<
[1] X. Zhang, J. Xia, Y. Zhou, G. Zhao, X. Liu, Y. Xu, and M. Mochizuki,
Nanofluidic Logic Based on Chiral Skyrmion Flows,
PNAS 122, e2506204122 (2025). [Link]
[2] X. Zhang, J. Xia, O. A. Tretiakov, M. Ezawa, G. Zhao, Y. Zhou, X. Liu, and M. Mochizuki,
Chiral Skyrmions Interacting with Chiral Flowers,
Nano Letters 23, 11793 (2023). [Link]
[3] X. Zhang, J. Xia, Y. Zhou, X. Liu, H. Zhang, and M. Ezawa,
Skyrmion Dynamics in a Frustrated Ferromagnetic Film and Current-Induced Helicity Locking-Unlocking Transition,
Nature Communications 8, 1717 (2017). [Link]
[4] X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and M. Ezawa,
Magnetic Bilayer-Skyrmions without Skyrmion Hall Effect,
Nature Communications 7, 10293 (2016). [Link]
[5] X. Zhang, J. Xia, K. Shirai, H. Fujiwara, O. A. Tretiakov, M. Ezawa, Y. Zhou, and X. Liu,
Configurable Pixelated Skyrmions on Nanoscale Magnetic Grids,
Communications Physics 4, 255 (2021). [Link]
>>>EXPERIMENTS<<<
[1] W. Jiang, X. Zhang, G. Yu, W. Zhang, X. Wang, M. B. Jungfleisch, J. E. Pearson, X. Cheng, O. Heinonen, K. L. Wang, Y. Zhou, A. Hoffmann, and S. G. E. te Velthuis,
Direct Observation of the Skyrmion Hall Effect,
Nature Physics 13, 162 (2017). [Link]
[2] S. Woo, K. M. Song, X. Zhang, M. Ezawa, Y. Zhou, X. Liu, M. Weigand, S. Finizio, J. Raabe, M. C. Park, K. Y. Lee, J. W. Choi, B. C. Min, H. C. Koo, and J. Chang,
Deterministic Creation and Deletion of a Single Magnetic Skyrmion Observed by Direct Time-Resolved X-Ray Microscopy,
Nature Electronics 1, 288 (2018). [Link]
[3] Y. Guang, X. Zhang, Y. Liu, L. Peng, F. S. Yasin, K. Karube, D. Nakamura, N. Nagaosa, Y. Taguchi, M. Mochizuki, Y. Tokura, and X. Yu,
Confined Antiskyrmion Motion Driven by Electric Current Excitations,
Nature Communications 15, 7701 (2024). [Link]
[4] J. Xu, J. Xia, X. Zhang, C. Zhou, D. Shi, H. Chen, T. Wu, Q. Li, H. Ding, Y. Zhou, and Y. Wu,
Exchange-Torque-Triggered Fast Switching of Antiferromagnetic Domains,
Physical Review Letters 128, 137201 (2022). [Link]
[5] L. Zhao, Z. Wang, X. Zhang, X. Liang, J. Xia, K. Wu, H. A. Zhou, Y. Dong, G. Yu, K. L. Wang, X. Liu, Y. Zhou, and W. Jiang,
Topology-Dependent Brownian Gyromotion of a Single Skyrmion,
Physical Review Letters 125, 027206 (2020). [Link]
>>>REVIEW<<<
X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, K. M. Song, T. E. Park, J. Xia, M. Ezawa, X. Liu, W. Zhao, G. Zhao, and S. Woo,
Skyrmion-Electronics: Writing, Deleting, Reading and Processing Magnetic Skyrmions Toward Spintronic Applications,
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 32, 143001 (2020). [Link]
>>>VIEWPOINT<<<
X. Zhang and M. Mochizuki,
Skyrmions as Active Matter,
Physics 18, 146 (2025). [Link]
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