Predicting Properties and Electronic Structure of Inorganic Materials with Machine Learning
Presenter
November 15, 2016
Abstract
Predicting Properties and Electronic Structure of Inorganic Materials with Machine Learning
Olexandr Isayev
University of North Carolina
Historically, materials discovery is driven by a laborious trial-and-error process. However, with the growth of materials databases, emerging informatics approaches o er an opportunity to transform this practice into data- and knowledge-driven rational design - accelerating discovery of novel materials exhibiting desired properties. Using data from the Aflow repository for high-throughput ab initio calculations, we have generated Machine Learning (ML) models to predict several critical material properties, namely the metal/insulator classification, elastic tensor, Fermi energy, and band gap energy. The prediction accuracy obtained with these ML models approaches that of GGA-DFT functionals for virtually any stoichiometric inorganic material. We attribute the success and universality of these models to the construction of new material descriptors - referred to as the universal property-labeled fragments (PLMF). This representation affords straightforward model interpretation in terms of simple heuristic design rules that could guide rational materials design. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates the power of materials informatics to dramatically accelerate the search for new materials.