XIA Xiuyang - The Department of Physics at Southern University of Science and Technology

Personal Profile

Dr. Xiuyang Xia received his PhD in 2023 from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, under the supervision of Prof. Ran Ni and Prof. Massimo Pica Ciamarra, and was awarded the Chinese National Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad Scholarship. In the same year, he was selected for the Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship and conducted research at the Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, working with Prof. Erwin Frey, recipient of the Max Planck Medal. He has joined Southern University of Science and Technology as a full-time Assistant Professor in Jan 2026.

His research focuses on theoretical and computational soft matter and biophysics. He has made a series of contributions in entropy-driven self-assembly, multivalent biosensing, and polymer network theory. Representative works include the discovery of zero-temperature entropy-driven phase transitions and bridging superselectivity in DNA-coated colloids, as well as collaborative studies revealing the formation mechanism of chiral colloidal Kagome lattices. To date, he has published 15 peer-reviewed papers, including 11 as first or co-first author, in leading journals such as Science (1), Reports on Progress in Physics (1), Science Advances (2), PNAS (1), and Physical Review Letters (2). He currently serves as a referee for journals including Physical Review Letters and Physical Review Research.

Computational Soft and Living Matter Lab

Research Areas

Soft Condensed Matter Physics
Biophysics
Statistical Mechanics

Educational Background

Sep. 2014 – Jun. 2018, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, B.S. in Polymer Materials and Engineering

Aug. 2018 – Apr. 2023, Nanyang Technological University, Ph.D. in Physics

Professional Experience

Jun. 2023 – Oct. 2023, Nanyang Technological University, Postdoctoral Researcher

Dec. 2023 – Nov. 2025, Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow

Jan. 2026 – Present, Southern University of Science and Technology, Assistant Professor

Selected Publication

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4851-4057

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?&user=isDMW0D64b4C

[1] Xiuyang Xia#, Yuhan Peng#, Ka Ki Li, and Ran Ni*, Designed self-assembly of programmable colloidal atom-electron equivalents, Rep. Prog. Phys., 88, 078101 (2025) arXiv

[2] Siyu Wan#, Xiuyang Xia#, Yutong Gao, Heyang Zhang, Zhebin Zhang, Fangyue Xu, Dong Yang, Tongtao Li*, Jianfeng Li*, Ran Ni*, and Angang Dong*, Curvature-guided depletion stabilizes Kagome superlattices of nanocrystals, Science, 387, 978 (2025) pdf [Highlighted in Science]

[3] Xiuyang Xia and Ran Ni*, Designing superselectivity in linker-mediated multivalent nanoparticle adsorption, Phys. Rev. Lett., 132, 118202 (2024) arXiv

[4] Qunli Lei#, Xiuyang Xia#, Juan Yang, Massimo Pica Ciamarra, and Ran Ni*, Entropy-Controlled Crosslinking in Linker-Mediated Vitrimers, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 117, 27111 (2020) pdf arXiv

[5] Xiuyang Xia, Hao Hu, Massimo Pica Ciamarra and Ran Ni*; Linker-mediated self-assembly of mobile DNA coated colloids, Science Advances, 6, eaaz6921 (2020) pdf arXiv