Abstract

Structure is the most basic and important property of crystalline solids; it determines directly or indirectly most materials characteristics. However, predicting crystal structure of solids remains a formidable and not fully solved problem. Standard theoretical tools for this task are computationally expensive and at times inaccurate. Here we present an alternative approach utilizing machine learning for crystal structure prediction. We developed a tool called Crystal Structure Prediction Network (CRYSPNet) that can predict the Bravais lattice, space group, and lattice parameters of an inorganic material based only on its chemical composition. CRYSPNet consists of a series of neural network models, using as inputs predictors aggregating the properties of the elements constituting the compound. It was trained and validated on more than 100 000 entries from the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database. The tool demonstrates robust predictive capability and outperforms alternative strategies by a large margin. It can be used both as an independent prediction engine and as a method to generate candidate structures for further computational and/or experimental validation.

Publication Details
Publication Type
Journal Article
Year of Publication
2020
Volume
4
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.4.123802
Journal
Physical Review Materials
Contributors
Groups