Dr. Xichao Zhang is an Assistant Professor at Waseda University. He is a member of Prof. Masahito Mochizuki’s Theoretical Group. He received his Ph.D. from Shinshu University in 2018, and was appointed as a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at Shinshu University (2020-2022). He also worked at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (2016-2020) and the University of Hong Kong (2014-2016).
Dr. Zhang’s research interests encompass spintronics, magnetism, and nanoscience, with a focus on the theoretical and computational study of spin dynamics, spin textures, and spintronic devices. He has spent more than ten years exploring different species of topological spin textures, including skyrmions, skyrmioniums, bimerons, and bimeroniums. Some specific systems that Dr. Zhang works on include bulk chiral magnets, thin films with interfacial chiral interactions, synthetic antiferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic multilayers, and low-dimensional frustrated magnets. He has also been investigating functional spintronic applications, such as logic and memory devices that utilize rigid spin textures as nonvolatile information carriers. Most recently, Dr. Zhang’s research particularly focuses on the dynamics and functionalization of interacting quasiparticles on artificially nanostructured magnetic surfaces and interfaces, which has been funded by Japan’s leading funding agency. In addition to the above topics, Dr. Zhang works on interdisciplinary problems that bridge spintronics with biological physics, soft matter, and fluid science. Examples include the chiral flow and transport of topological spin textures and the complex diffusive behaviors of particle-like spin textures.
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, Nano Letters, Physical Review Letters, and Applied Physics Letters. He has also coauthored over 80 peer-reviewed academic papers through international collaborations with leading universities and industry organizations. Besides, he has contributed five invited chapters to three academic books published by Taylor & Francis Group, Elsevier, and Springer. His Google Scholar citations are over 12,000 with an h-index of 46.
Dr. Zhang’s research contributions have earned him widespread recognition in the scientific community. He has been ranked among the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University since 2020. In 2018, he received China Top Cited Author Award from IOP Publishing. In 2019, he was awarded the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship from CUHKSZ and received a Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award (Second Prize). In 2023, he was awarded the MSJ Distinguished Paper Award. In 2024, he was elected as an IEEE Senior Member. In 2025, Dr. Zhang received the Waseda Research Award (High-Impact Publication Category) from Waseda University.
Dr. Zhang holds professional memberships with IEEE, APS, JPS, JSAP, and MSJ. He serves as reviewer for prestigious journals and internationally peer-reviewed grants, and served as guest editor for several special journal issues. In his spare time, Dr. Zhang enjoys photography and reading historical nonfiction.
>>>SELECTED PUBLICATIONS<<<
[01] “Skyrmion Dynamics in a Frustrated Ferromagnetic Film and Current-Induced Helicity Locking-Unlocking Transition”,
X. Zhang, J. Xia, Y. Zhou, X. Liu, H. Zhang, and M. Ezawa,
Nature Communications 8, 1717 (2017).
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01785-w
[02] “Magnetic Bilayer-Skyrmions without Skyrmion Hall Effect”,
X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and M. Ezawa,
Nature Communications 7, 10293 (2016).
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10293
[03] “Configurable Pixelated Skyrmions on Nanoscale Magnetic Grids”,
X. Zhang, J. Xia, K. Shirai, H. Fujiwara, O. A. Tretiakov, M. Ezawa, Y. Zhou, and X. Liu,
Communications Physics 4, 255 (2021).
DOI: 10.1038/s42005-021-00761-7
[04] “Magnetic Skyrmion Logic Gates: Conversion, Duplication and Merging of Skyrmions”,
X. Zhang, M. Ezawa, and Y. Zhou,
Scientific Reports 5, 9400 (2015).
DOI: 10.1038/srep09400
[05] “Laminar and Transiently Disordered Dynamics of Magnetic-Skyrmion Pipe Flow”,
X. Zhang, J. Xia, O. A. Tretiakov, M. Ezawa, G. Zhao, Y. Zhou, X. Liu, and M. Mochizuki,
Physical Review B 108, 144428 (2023).
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.108.144428
[06] “Static and Dynamic Properties of Bimerons in a Frustrated Ferromagnetic Monolayer”,
X. Zhang, J. Xia, L. Shen, M. Ezawa, O. A. Tretiakov, G. Zhao, X. Liu, and Y. Zhou,
Physical Review B 101, 144435 (2020).
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.101.144435
[07] “Control and Manipulation of a Magnetic Skyrmionium in Nanostructures”,
X. Zhang, J. Xia, Y. Zhou, D. Wang, X. Liu, W. Zhao, and M. Ezawa,
Physical Review B 94, 094420 (2016).
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.94.094420
[08] “Chiral Skyrmions Interacting with Chiral Flowers”,
X. Zhang, J. Xia, O. A. Tretiakov, M. Ezawa, G. Zhao, Y. Zhou, X. Liu, and M. Mochizuki,
Nano Letters 23, 11793 (2023).
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c03792
[09] “A Frustrated Bimeronium: Static Structure and Dynamics”,
X. Zhang, J. Xia, M. Ezawa, O. A. Tretiakov, H. T. Diep, G. Zhao, X. Liu, and Y. Zhou,
Applied Physics Letters 118, 052411 (2021).
DOI: 10.1063/5.0034396
[10] “Direct Observation of the Skyrmion Hall Effect”,
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,
Nature Physics 13, 162 (2017).
DOI: 10.1038/nphys3883
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