My name is Zhaoju Yang (杨兆举). Currently, I am a tenure-track professor of School of Physics, Zhejiang University at Hangzhou city, China.

Experience
2020.09-: School of Physics, Zhejiang University.
2018-2020: Postdoc Fellow at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
2013-2017: PhD. in physics at Nanyang Technological University - NTU Singapore.
2009-2013: BSc. in physics at Jilin University.

Teaching
Mechanics, undergraduate

Research

My research focuses on the exploration of quantum phenomena in artificial lattices of photons and atoms. We aim to study the exotic topological, non-Hermitian, and many-body quantum phases of matter based on quantum platforms such as photonics, atoms and superconducting qubits.

As the 1st or corresponding author, my group has published papers in Science, Nature Photonics, Nature Physics, Physical Review X (PRX), Physical Review Letters (PRL), and Nature Communications, et. al. One of our papers has been cited over 1,000 times, and multiple articles have been recognized as ESI Highly Cited Papers.

News

2024 Nature Physics: Chiral dynamics of ultracold atoms under a tunable SU(2) synthetic gauge field. ZJU news1, news2.

2024 PRL: Floquet 1D non-Hermitian skin effect and Floquet skin-topological effect in optical arrays of helical waveguides. Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 063804 (2024). News.

2023 Nature Photonics: Quantum time refraction/reflection for matter waves. Nature Photonics 18, 68-73 (2024). Nature Photonics News & Views ‘Reflection and refraction at a time boundary’ for more details. News Link 1 & Link 2.

2023 Nat. Commu.: Observing the acoustic spatiotemporal vortices. Nature Communications 14, 6238 (2023). News.

202304 <物理>: 2023年第四期发表’从大自然的分形之美中寻找非凡物态’的科普评述文章. Physics 2023, 52(4): Looking for the nontrivial states of matter from fractals.

202205 Science: Our work Fractal photonic topological insulators has been published in Science. Please see the news link.

202009 Excited by many great minds, I am now in an exponential decay into a normalized ground state.

Selected Publications

1. Quantum boomerang effect of light.
   X Hou^#, Z Wu^#, F Wang, S Zhu, B Yan, and Z. Yang^†.
   Nature Communications (2025). In press.

2. Chiral dynamics of ultracold atoms under a tunable SU(2) synthetic gauge field.
   Q. Liang^#, Z. Dong^#,J.-S. Pan^#, H. Wang, H. Li, Z. Yang^†, W. Yi^† and B. Yan^†.
   Nature Physics 20, 1738-1743 (2024). Research Briefing. 20 Sep. 2024.

3. Photonic Floquet skin-topological effect.
   Y. Sun^#, X. Hou^#, T. Wan, F. Wang, S. Zhu, Z. Ruan^†, and Z. Yang^†.
   Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 063804 (2024). Feb. 9, 2024. [arXiv:2306.03705 (2023).] ESI highly cited paper.

4. Quantum time reflection and refraction of ultracold atoms.
   Z. Dong^#, H. Li^#, T. Wan^#, Q. Liang, Z. Yang^†, and B. Yan^†.
   Nature Photonics 18, 68-73 (2024). Sep. 18, 2023.
   News & Views: Reflection and refraction at a time boundary.
   ESI highly cited paper. [arXiv, 6 Mar. 2023]

5. Topologically crafted spatiotemporal vortices in acoustics.
   H. Zhang^#, Y. Sun^#, J. Huang^#, B. Wu, Z. Yang^†, K. Y. Bliokh, and Z. Ruan^†.
   Nature Communications 14, 6238 (2023). Oct. 6, 2023. [arXiv:2303.10549 (2023). Mar. 19]

6. Fractal photonic topological insulator.
   T. Biesenthal, L. Maczewsky, Z. Yang^†, M. Kremer, M. Segev, A. Szameit^†, and M. Heinrich^†.
   Science 376, 1114-1119 (2022). Editorial Summary. ESI highly cited paper.
   Physics World: Photonic fractals open a new area of topological physics. Technology.org.

7. Photonic Floquet topological insulators in a fractal lattice.
   Z. Yang, E. Lustig, Y. Lumer, and M. Segev^†.
   Light: Science & Applications 9, 128 (2020). Editorial Summary.
   Phys.org, Science Magazine, PhotonicsViews, Bioengineer, IEEE Spectrum, Eurekalert.

8. Mode-locked topological insulator laser utilizing synthetic dimensions.
   Z. Yang^#, E. Lustig^#, G. Harari, Y. Plotnik, Y. Lumer, M. Bandres, and M. Segev^†.
   Phys. Rev. X 10, 011059 (2020). Popular Summary, CLEO 2019.

9. Topologically-protected refraction of robust kink states in valley photonic crystals.
   F. Gao^#, H. Xue^#, Z. Yang^†, K. Lai, Y. Yu, X. Lin, Y. Chong, G. Shvets^†, and B. Zhang^†.
   Nature Physics 14, 140-144 (2018). ESI highly cited paper.
   News and views: Topological valleytronics: Brought to light.

10. Strain-induced gauge field and Landau levels in acoustic structures.
    Z. Yang, F. Gao, Y. Yang, and B. Zhang^†.
    Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 194301 (2017).

11. Acoustic type-II Weyl nodes from stacking dimerized chains.
    Z. Yang, and B. Zhang^†.
    Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 224301 (2016).
    Reported by AAPPS Bulletin, Research Highlights, Physics Focus.

12. Topological acoustics.
    Z. Yang, F. Gao, X. Shi, X. Lin, Z. Gao, Y. Chong, and B. Zhang^†.
    Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 114301 (2015). Google citation > 1000. ESI highly cited paper.
    PRL Editor’s suggestion and Featured in physics.
    Highlighted as Physics Review Focus by Physics. Reported by Physics World, Science News, Popular Mechanics.