My research interests cover phase-change materials for non-volatile memory and neuro-inspired computing, materials desgin and synthesis, large-scale ab initio calculations, machine-learning potentials, electronic and optical properties of chalcogenides as well as phase transitions in complex material systems. 

Selected publications: 

1. Wei 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, 952-956 (2012).

2. 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, Wei Zhang* and E. Ma, Reducing the stochasticity of crystal nucleation to enable subnanosecond memory writing, Science 358, 1423-1427 (2017). 

3. Wei Zhang* and E. Ma*, Phase-change memory: Single-element glass to record data, Nature Materials 17, 654-655 (2018).

4. K. Ding, J.-J. Wang, Y.-X. Zhou, H. Tian, L. Lu, R. Mazzarello, C. Jia, Wei Zhang*, F. Rao* and E. Ma*, Phase-change heterostructure enables ultralow noise and drift for memory operation, Science 366, 210-215 (2019).

5. F. Rao*, Wei Zhang* and E. Ma*, Catching structural transitions in liquids, Science 364, 1032-1033 (2019).

6. Wei Zhang*, R. Mazzarello, M. Wuttig and E. Ma, Designing crystallization in phase-change materials for universal memory and neuro-inspired computing, Nature Reviews Materials 4, 150-168 (2019).

7. X. Fu, X.-D. Wang, B. Zhao, Q. Zhang, S. Sun, J.-J. Wang, Wei Zhang*, L. Gu, Y. Zhang, W.-Z. Zhang, W. Wen, Z. Zhang, L.-q. Chen*, Q. Yu* and E. Ma*, Atomic-scale observation of non-classical nucleation-mediated phase transformation in a titanium alloy, Nature Materials 21, 290–296 (2022).

8. Y.-X. Zhou, Wei Zhang*, E. Ma and V. L. Deringer*, Device-scale atomistic modelling of phase-change memory materials, Nature Electronics 6, 746-754 (2023).

9. X.-Z. Wang, R. Wang, S. Sun, D. Xu, C. Nie, Z. Zhou, C. Wen, J. Zhang, R. Chu, X. Shen, W. Zhou, Z. Song, J.-J. Wang*, En Ma* and Wei Zhang*, Amorphous phase-change memory alloy with no resistance drift, Nature Materials (2025) DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02361-0

10. Y. Zhou, D. F. Thomas du Toit, S. R. Elliott, Wei Zhang* and V. L. Deringer*, Full-cycle device-scale simulations of memory materials with a tailored atomic-cluster-expansion potential, Nature Communications 16, 8688 (2025).