No Arabic abstract
StructOpt, an open-source structure optimization suite, applies genetic algorithm and particle swarm methods to obtain atomic structures that minimize an objective function. The objective function typically consists of the energy and the error between simulated and experimental data, which is typically applied to determine structures that minimize energy to the extent possible while also being fully consistent with available experimental data. We present example use cases including the structure of a metastable Pt nanoparticle determined from energetic and scanning transmission electron microscopy data, and the structure of an amorphous-nanocrystal composite determined from energetic and fluctuation electron microscopy data. StructOpt is modular in its construction and therefore is naturally extensible to include new materials simulation modules or new optimization methods, either written by the user or existing in other code packages. It uses the Message Passing Interfaces (MPI) dynamic process management functionality to allocate resources to computationally expensive codes on the fly, enabling StructOpt to take full advantage of the parallelization tools available in many scientific packages.
Qudi is a general, modular, multi-operating system suite written in Python 3 for controlling laboratory experiments. It provides a structured environment by separating functionality into hardware abstraction, experiment logic and user interface layers. The core feature set comprises a graphical user interface, live data visualization, distributed execution over networks, rapid prototyping via Jupyter notebooks, configuration management, and data recording. Currently, the included modules are focused on confocal microscopy, quantum optics and quantum information experiments, but an expansion into other fields is possible and encouraged. Qudi is available from https://github.com/Ulm-IQO/qudi and is freely useable under the GNU General Public Licence.
Module for ab initio structure evolution (MAISE) is an open-source package for materials modeling and prediction. The codes main feature is an automated generation of neural network (NN) interatomic potentials for use in global structure searches. The systematic construction of Behler-Parrinello-type NN models approximating ab initio energy and forces relies on two approaches introduced in our recent studies. An evolutionary sampling scheme for generating reference structures improves the NNs mapping of regions visited in unconstrained searches, while a stratified training approach enables the creation of standardized NN models for multiple elements. A more flexible NN architecture proposed here expands the applicability of the stratified scheme for an arbitrary number of elements. The full workflow in the NN development is managed with a customizable MAISE-NET wrapper written in Python. The global structure optimization capability in MAISE is based on an evolutionary algorithm applicable for nanoparticles, films, and bulk crystals. A multitribe extension of the algorithm allows for an efficient simultaneous optimization of nanoparticles in a given size range. Implemented structure analysis functions include fingerprinting with radial distribution functions and finding space groups with the SPGLIB tool. This work overviews MAISEs available features, constructed models, and confirmed predictions.
In this work, we present a highly accurate spectral neighbor analysis potential (SNAP) model for molybdenum (Mo) developed through the rigorous application of machine learning techniques on large materials data sets. Despite Mos importance as a structural metal, existing force fields for Mo based on the embedded atom and modified embedded atom methods still do not provide satisfactory accuracy on many properties. We will show that by fitting to the energies, forces and stress tensors of a large density functional theory (DFT)-computed dataset on a diverse set of Mo structures, a Mo SNAP model can be developed that achieves close to DFT accuracy in the prediction of a broad range of properties, including energies, forces, stresses, elastic constants, melting point, phonon spectra, surface energies, grain boundary energies, etc. We will outline a systematic model development process, which includes a rigorous approach to structural selection based on principal component analysis, as well as a differential evolution algorithm for optimizing the hyperparameters in the model fitting so that both the model error and the property prediction error can be simultaneously lowered. We expect that this newly developed Mo SNAP model will find broad applications in large-scale, long-time scale simulations.
As data science and machine learning methods are taking on an increasingly important role in the materials research community, there is a need for the development of machine learning software tools that are easy to use (even for nonexperts with no programming ability), provide flexible access to the most important algorithms, and codify best practices of machine learning model development and evaluation. Here, we introduce the Materials Simulation Toolkit for Machine Learning (MAST-ML), an open source Python-based software package designed to broaden and accelerate the use of machine learning in materials science research. MAST-ML provides predefined routines for many input setup, model fitting, and post-analysis tasks, as well as a simple structure for executing a multi-step machine learning model workflow. In this paper, we describe how MAST-ML is used to streamline and accelerate the execution of machine learning problems. We walk through how to acquire and run MAST-ML, demonstrate how to execute different components of a supervised machine learning workflow via a customized input file, and showcase a number of features and analyses conducted automatically during a MAST-ML run. Further, we demonstrate the utility of MAST-ML by showcasing examples of recent materials informatics studies which used MAST-ML to formulate and evaluate various machine learning models for an array of materials applications. Finally, we lay out a vision of how MAST-ML, together with complementary software packages and emerging cyberinfrastructure, can advance the rapidly growing field of materials informatics, with a focus on producing machine learning models easily, reproducibly, and in a manner that facilitates model evolution and improvement in the future.
Ion-conducting solid electrolytes are widely used for a variety of purposes. Therefore, designing highly ion-conductive materials is in strongly demand. Because of advancement in computers and enhancement of computational codes, theoretical simulations have become effective tools for investigating the performance of ion-conductive materials. However, an exhaustive search conducted by theoretical computations can be prohibitively expensive. Further, for practical applications, both dynamic conductivity as well as static stability must be satisfied at the same time. Therefore, we propose a computational framework that simultaneously optimizes dynamic conductivity and static stability; this is achieved by combining theoretical calculations and the Bayesian multi-objective optimization that is based on the Pareto hyper-volume criterion. Our framework iteratively selects the candidate material, which maximizes the expected increase in the Pareto hyper-volume criterion; this is a standard optimality criterion of multi-objective optimization. Through two case studies on oxygen and lithium diffusions, we show that ion-conductive materials with high dynamic conductivity and static stability can be efficiently identified by our framework.