Jiadong Zang

Jiadong Zang
Nationality	American
Occupation	Physicist, academic
Known for	Research on skyrmions, chiral magnets, and topological spin textures

Jiadong Zang is a physicist and academic at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire, where he conducts research in condensed matter physics with a focus on magnetic materials and topological spin structures. His work spans theoretical and computational studies of chiral magnets, skyrmions, antiferromagnetic materials, and emerging quantum materials, and he has authored or co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications that have been cited thousands of times in the scientific literature.

Education

Zang earned a Bachelor of Science in physics from Fudan University in 2007 and completed a Ph.D. in physics at the same institution in 2012. He then held a postdoctoral appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University from 2012 to 2015, joining the University of New Hampshire in 2015.

Career

Zang holds a faculty appointment at the University of New Hampshire, where he leads a research group working on theoretical and computational condensed matter physics. In this role, he has supervised and collaborated with researchers studying magnetic topological structures, including skyrmions and related spin textures, in a range of magnetic and multiferroic material systems.

Over the course of his career, Zang has published extensively in leading physics journals, including Nature Materials, Physical Review Letters, and npj Quantum Materials, reflecting sustained engagement with experimental collaborators as well as theoretical modeling efforts. His research program at the University of New Hampshire has produced work spanning fundamental theory, materials discovery informed by computational and data-driven methods, and applied studies relevant to energy storage and electromagnetic materials.

Research

Zang's research centers on the physics of topological spin textures in magnetic materials, a subfield of condensed matter physics concerned with structures such as skyrmions, hopfions, and heliknotons that arise from the interplay of magnetic exchange, spin-orbit coupling, and geometric constraints. His work on the electrical writing of magnetic heliknotons in chiral magnets, published in Nature Materials, examines how localized topological magnetic structures can be generated and manipulated using electric currents, a topic with implications for spintronic memory and logic devices.

A related line of his research addresses the construction and stability of hopfion crystals, three-dimensional topological magnetic textures that extend the concept of two-dimensional skyrmions into more complex geometries. This work, published in Physical Review Research, contributes to the broader theoretical understanding of how three-dimensional topological solitons can be stabilized and organized into ordered lattices within magnetic materials.

Zang has also investigated antiferromagnetic materials with unconventional symmetry properties. His study of the symmetry and minimal Hamiltonian of the nonsymmorphic collinear antiferromagnet manganese telluride (MnTe), published in npj Quantum Materials, explores how crystal symmetry constraints shape the magnetic and electronic Hamiltonian of this material, with relevance to the broader field of altermagnetism and unconventional magnetic order. In parallel, his research on geometry-driven polar antiferromagnetic metallicity in a double-layered perovskite cobaltate, published in Nature Materials, addresses how structural distortions in layered oxide materials can give rise to coexisting polar and antiferromagnetic metallic states.

Another focus of Zang's work involves the study of magnetic topological charge and fluctuation effects at interfaces between platinum and ferromagnetic insulators, published in Physical Review Letters. This research examines how thermal and quantum fluctuations can generate and influence topological magnetic charge signatures in thin-film heterostructures, contributing to the understanding of emergent topological phenomena at engineered material interfaces.

Beyond his core work in magnetism, Zang has contributed to interdisciplinary and applied research directions. He has co-authored studies applying large language models to the problem of superconductor discovery, reflecting an interest in data-driven and machine learning approaches to materials science. He has also contributed to work on energy storage materials, including antiferroelectric composite ceramics designed for high energy storage density and efficiency, and on electromagnetic wave absorption properties of polymer-graphene composites.

Zang's publication record, comprising 155 papers with a cumulative citation count of 8,079 and an h-index of 39 according to Semantic Scholar metrics, reflects a research program with substantial engagement from the broader condensed matter physics and materials science communities.

Recognition

Zang's research contributions are reflected in the citation impact of his published work, with several of his co-authored papers in journals such as Nature Materials, Physical Review Letters, and npj Quantum Materials garnering significant attention within the condensed matter physics community, as measured by citation counts recorded in academic databases.

Publications

A selection of Zang's publications includes:

• "Research progress on broadband electromagnetic wave absorption properties of polyurethane/graphene composites," Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics (2026).
• "Electrically writing a magnetic heliknoton in a chiral magnet," Nature Materials (2026).
• "Metrnl and macrophage polarization: role in skeletal muscle homeostasis and therapeutic potential," Frontiers in Immunology (2026).
• "Exploring the mechanism of myofascial trigger points deactivation by Tuina via the TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway," Digital Chinese Medicine (2026).
• "Ultrahigh energy storage density and efficiency in PLZST-based relaxor antiferroelectric composite ceramics," Journal of Materials Research (2026).
• "Large language models for superconductor discovery," Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (2025).
• "Construction of hopfion crystals," Physical Review Research (2025).
• "Geometry-driven polar antiferromagnetic metallicity in a double-layered perovskite cobaltate," Nature Materials (2025).
• "Signatures of Fluctuation-Driven Magnetic Topological Charge in Pt-Ferromagnetic Insulator Bilayers," Physical Review Letters (2025).
• "Symmetry and minimal Hamiltonian of nonsymmorphic collinear antiferromagnet MnTe," npj Quantum Materials (2025).

External links

• Semantic Scholar author profile
• University of New Hampshire faculty directory

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