1) Advanced electronic materials, Phase Change Memory Materials, Topological Insulators and Graphene Nanostructures.

2) Materials modelling and design from first principle simulations.

3) Materials characterizations at the nanoscale. 

04/2017-now，  School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University. Professor.

05/2015—03/2017, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University. Research Fellow

04/2014—04/2015 Institute of Physics (IA), Department of Physics, RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Postdoctoral Fellow.

04/2011—03/2014 Ph.D. Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics, Department of Physics, RWTH Aachen University, Germany. 
09/2008—06/2010 M.Sc. Institute of condensed matter physics, Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, China. 
09/2004—06/2008 B.Sc. Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, China. 

2015   Borchers Badge, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

2014   PhD with Distinction, "Summa Cum Laude"

2013   Celebrity of "Study in Germany"

1.  F. Rao,* K. Y. Ding, Y. X. Zhou, Y. H. Zheng, M. J. Xia, S. L. Lv, Z. T. Song,* S. L. Feng, I. Ronneberger, R. Mazzarello, W. Zhang* and E. Ma, "Reducing the stochasticity of crystal nucleation to enable subnanosecond memory writing", Science, 358, 1423-1427 (2017)  

2.  W. Zhang, A. Thiess, P. Zalden, R. Zeller, P. H. Dederichs, J.-Y. Raty, M. Wuttig*, S. Blügel, and R. Mazzarello*, "Role of vacancies in metal-insulator transitions of crystalline phase-change materials", Nature Materials 11, 952 (2012)  

3.  W. Zhang, I. Ronneberger, Y. Li, and R. Mazzarello*, "Magnetic properties of crystalline and amorphous phase-change materials doped with 3d impurities", Advanced Materials 24, 4387 (2012)  

4.  W. Zhang*, Volker L. Deringer, Richard Dronskowski, Riccardo Mazzarello, Evan Ma, Matthias Wuttig, "Density functional theory guided advances in phase-change materials and memories", MRS Bulletin, 40, 856-869 (2015).  

5.  Y. Li, W. Zhang, M. Morgenstern, and R. Mazzarello*, "Electronic and magnetic properties of zigzag graphene nanoribbons on the (111) surface of Cu, Ag and Au", Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 216804 (2013)  

6.  V.-L. Deringer, W. Zhang, M. Lumeij, S. Maintz, M. Wuttig, R. Mazzarello,* R. Dronskowski*,"Bonding Nature of Local Structural Motifs in Amorphous GeTe". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53, 10817-10820 (2014)  

7.  J.-Y. Raty, W. Zhang, J. Luckas, R. Mazzarello, C. Bichara, M. Wuttig, "Aging mechanisms in amorphous phase-change materials", Nature Communications 6, 7467 (2015)  

8.  I. Ronneberger, W. Zhang, H. Eshet, R. Mazzarello*, "Crystallization properties of Ge2Sb2Te5 phase-change compound from advanced simulations", Adv. Funct. Mater. 40, 6407-6413 (2015)  

9.  M. Xu*, W. Zhang, R. Mazzarello and M. Wuttig*, "Disorder Control in Crystalline GeSb2Te4 using High Pressure", Advanced Science 2, 1500117 (2015)  

10.  Y.-C. Wang, W. Zhang*, L.-Y. Wang, Z. Zhuang, E. Ma, J. Li, Z.-W. Shan*, "In situ TEM study of deformation-induced crystalline-to-amorphous transition in silicon", NPG Asia Materials, 8, e291 (2016)