Tang Sui, Shaolong Liu, Bihui Cong, Xiaoke Xu, Dongjing Shan, Giuseppe Milano, Ying Zhao, Shuang Xu, Jiashun Mao
{"title":"Graph attention networks decode conductive network mechanism and accelerate design of polymer nanocomposites","authors":"Tang Sui, Shaolong Liu, Bihui Cong, Xiaoke Xu, Dongjing Shan, Giuseppe Milano, Ying Zhao, Shuang Xu, Jiashun Mao","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01773-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01773-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Conductive polymer nanocomposites have emerged as essential materials for wearable devices. In this study, we propose a novel approach that combines graph attention networks (GAT) with an improved global pooling strategy and incremental learning. We train the GAT model on homopolymer/carbon nanotube (CNT) nanocomposite data simulated by hybrid particle-field molecular dynamics (hPF-MD) method within the CNT concentration range of 1–8%. We further analyze the conductive network structure by integrating the resistor network approach with the GAT’s attention scores, revealing optimal connectivity at a 7% concentration. The comparative analysis of trained data and the reconstructed network, based on the attention scores, underscores the GAT model’s ability in learning network structural representations. This work not only validates the efficacy of the GAT model in property prediction and interpretable network structure analysis of polymer nanocomposites but also lays a cornerstone for the reverse engineering of polymer composites.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144910810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Weijiang Zhao, Zhaoqi Chen, Yinghui Shang, Qing Wang, Li Wang, Bin Liu, Yong Liu, Yong Yang
{"title":"A physics-informed machine learning framework for accelerated discovery of single-phase B2 multi-principal element intermetallics","authors":"Weijiang Zhao, Zhaoqi Chen, Yinghui Shang, Qing Wang, Li Wang, Bin Liu, Yong Liu, Yong Yang","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01775-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01775-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Single-phase ordered body-centered cubic or B2 multi-principal element intermetallics (MPEIs) have garnered significant attention due to their exceptional mechanical and functional properties. However, their discovery in complex compositional spaces is challenging due to the lack of high-dimensional phase diagrams and the inefficiency of traditional trial-and-error methods. In this study, we developed a physics-informed machine learning (ML) framework that integrates a conditional variational autoencoder (CVAE) with an artificial neural network (ANN). This approach effectively addresses the challenges of data limitation and imbalance, enabling the high-throughput generation of B2 MPEIs. Using this framework, we successfully identified a wide range of B2 complex alloys, spanning quaternary to senary systems, with superior mechanical performance. This work not only demonstrates a significant advancement in the discovery of B2 MPEIs but also provides an accelerated pathway for their design and development.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144905805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ke Xu, Ting Liang, Nan Xu, Penghua Ying, Shunda Chen, Ning Wei, Jianbin Xu, Zheyong Fan
{"title":"NEP-MB-pol: a unified machine-learned framework for fast and accurate prediction of water’s thermodynamic and transport properties","authors":"Ke Xu, Ting Liang, Nan Xu, Penghua Ying, Shunda Chen, Ning Wei, Jianbin Xu, Zheyong Fan","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01777-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01777-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The complex interatomic interactions and strong nuclear quantum effects in water pose significant challenges for accurately modeling its structural, thermodynamic, and transport behavior across varied conditions. While machine-learned potentials have improved the prediction of either static or transport properties individually, a unified computational framework that accurately captures both has remained elusive. Here, we introduce a machine-learned framework with a highly accurate and efficient neuroevolution potential trained on extensive many-body polarization reference data approaching coupled-cluster-level accuracy, combined with path-integral molecular dynamics and quantum-correction techniques. By capturing the quantum nature of water, this framework accurately predicts its structural, thermodynamic, and transport properties across a broad temperature range, enabling fast, accurate, and simultaneous prediction of self-diffusion coefficient, viscosity, and thermal conductivity. This work represents a major stride in water modeling, providing a unified and robust approach for exploring water’s thermodynamic and transport properties, with broad applications across multiple scientific disciplines.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"160 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144905804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Giant valley splitting and tunable anisotropic spin plasmons in a Janus ferrovalley monolayer","authors":"Zhihua Zhang, Haotian Sun, Mimi Dong, Yiyi Guo, Mingwen Zhao","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01776-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01776-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Manipulating the spin and valley degrees of freedom of electrons is crucial for next-generation information technologies. Altermagnets, as an emerging magnetic phase, provide a quantum platform with intrinsic spin-valley locking, enabling multi-state manipulation of both spin and valley. Here, we propose a Janus monolayer CaCoFeN<sub>2</sub>, achieved through in situ substitution of magnetic transition metal atoms in the two-dimensional (2D) altermagnet Ca(CoN)<sub>2</sub> [<u>Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 056401 (2024)</u>]. Our first-principles calculations identify CaCoFeN<sub>2</sub> as an anisotropic spin-plasmon ferrovalley semiconductor, with a large valley splitting of 273 meV solely through crystal symmetry breaking, without any involvement of spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Furthermore, its anisotropic electronic structures facilitate highly directional spin plasmon propagation. Carrier-type switching (<i>n</i>-type ↔ <i>p</i>-type) reverses the anisotropy along orthogonal axes, yielding open equi-frequency contours in <i>n</i>-type CaCoFeN<sub>2</sub>. The integration of spontaneous spin and valley polarization within a single material without SOC, offers new opportunities for advancements in spintronics and valleytronics.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jason Manassa, William Millsaps, Jonathan Schwartz, Robert Hovden
{"title":"Optimal 3D chemical imaging with multimodal electron tomography","authors":"Jason Manassa, William Millsaps, Jonathan Schwartz, Robert Hovden","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01750-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01750-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Accurate mapping of nanoscale chemistry in three dimensions (3D) has been a longstanding challenge. Modern electron microscopy provides chemical images by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDX) but requires high fluences that damage specimens. In 3D, the requirements are worse; electron tomography demands many high-fluence chemical maps for reconstruction, creating a tradeoff between resolution, accuracy, and sample survival. Fused multimodal electron tomography (MM-ET) alleviates this requirement by leveraging lower-fluence high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) images alongside a few chemical maps to dramatically improve chemical resolution. Here, experimental and computational parameter space is systematically explored to determine when MM-ET performs best. Ideal imaging conditions balance sample survival with resolution and chemical specificity; we recommend a tilt range of at least ± 70<sup><span>∘</span></sup>, acquiring 40 equally spaced HAADF projections (signal-to-noise > 10), and 7 EELS/EDX maps of each chemistry (signal-to-noise > 4).</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A versatile multimodal learning framework bridging multiscale knowledge for material design","authors":"Yuhui Wu, Minmin Ding, Haonan He, Qijun Wu, Shaohua Jiang, Peng Zhang, Jian Ji","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01767-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01767-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Artificial intelligence has achieved remarkable success in materials science, accelerating novel material design. However, real-world material systems exhibit multiscale complexity—spanning composition, processing, structure, and properties—posing significant challenges for modeling. While some approaches fuse multiscale features to improve prediction, important modalities such as microstructure are often missing due to high acquisition costs. Existing methods struggle with incomplete data and lack a framework to bridge multiscale material knowledge. To address this, we propose MatMCL, a structure-guided multimodal learning framework that jointly analyzes multiscale material information and enables robust property prediction with incomplete modalities. Using a self-constructed multimodal dataset of electrospun nanofibers, we demonstrate that MatMCL improves mechanical property prediction without structural information, generates microstructures from processing parameters, and enables cross-modal retrieval. We further extend it via multi-stage learning and apply it to nanofiber-reinforced composite design. MatMCL uncovers processing-structure-property relationships, suggesting its promise as a generalizable approach for AI-driven material design.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexander J. Pattison, Stephanie M. Ribet, Marcus M. Noack, Georgios Varnavides, Kunwoo Park, Earl J. Kirkland, Jungwon Park, Colin Ophus, Peter Ercius
{"title":"BEACON—automated aberration correction for scanning transmission electron microscopy using Bayesian optimization","authors":"Alexander J. Pattison, Stephanie M. Ribet, Marcus M. Noack, Georgios Varnavides, Kunwoo Park, Earl J. Kirkland, Jungwon Park, Colin Ophus, Peter Ercius","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01766-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01766-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Aberration correction is an important aspect of modern high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy. Most methods of aligning aberration correctors require specialized sample regions and are unsuitable for fine-tuning aberrations without interrupting on-going experiments. Here, we present an automated method of correcting first- and second-order aberrations called BEACON, which uses Bayesian optimization of the normalized image variance to efficiently determine the optimal corrector settings. We demonstrate its use on gold nanoparticles and a hafnium dioxide thin film showing its versatility in nano- and atomic-scale experiments. BEACON can correct all first- and second-order aberrations simultaneously to achieve an initial alignment and first- and second-order aberrations independently for fine alignment. Ptychographic reconstructions are used to demonstrate an improvement in probe shape and a reduction in the target aberration.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yusuf Shaidu, Mit H. Naik, Steven G. Louie, Jeffrey B. Neaton
{"title":"Transferable dispersion-aware machine learning interatomic potentials for multilayer transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures","authors":"Yusuf Shaidu, Mit H. Naik, Steven G. Louie, Jeffrey B. Neaton","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01761-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01761-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Stacking atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) into heterostructures enables exploration of exotic quantum phases, particularly through twist-angle-controlled moiré superlattices. These structures exhibit novel electronic and optical behaviors driven by atomic-scale structural reconstruction. However, studying such systems with DFT is computationally demanding due to their large unit cells and van der Waals (vdW) interactions between layers. To address this, we develop a transferable neural network potential (NNP) that includes long-range vdW corrections up to 12Å with minimal overhead. Trained on vdW-corrected DFT data for Mo- and W-based TMDs with S, Se, and Te, the NNP accurately models monolayers, bilayers, heterostructures, and their interaction with h-BN substrates. It reproduces equilibrium structures, energy landscapes, phonon dispersions, and matches experimental atomic reconstructions in twisted WS<sub>2</sub> and MoS<sub>2</sub>/WSe<sub>2</sub> systems. We demonstrate that our NNP achieves DFT-level accuracy and high computational efficiency, enabling large-scale simulations of TMD-based moiré superlattices both with and without substrates.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Physics-informed neural operators for generalizable and label-free inference of temperature-dependent thermoelectric properties","authors":"Hyeonbin Moon, Songho Lee, Wabi Demeke, Byungki Ryu, Seunghwa Ryu","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01769-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01769-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Accurate characterization of temperature-dependent thermoelectric properties (TEPs), such as thermal conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient, is essential for modeling and design of thermoelectric devices. However, nonlinear temperature dependence and coupled transport behavior make forward simulation and inverse identification challenging under sparse measurements. We present a physics-informed machine learning framework combining physics-informed neural networks (PINN) and neural operators (PINO) for solving forward and inverse problems in thermoelectric systems. PINN enables field reconstruction and property inference by embedding governing equations into the loss function, while PINO generalizes across materials without retraining. Trained on simulated data for 20 p-type materials and tested on 60 unseen materials, PINO accurately infers TEPs using only sparse temperature and voltage data. This framework provides a scalable, data-efficient, and generalizable solution for thermoelectric property identification, facilitating high-throughput screening and inverse design of advanced thermoelectric materials.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Anisotropic temperature-dependent lattice parameters and elastic constants from first principles","authors":"Samare Rostami, Matteo Giantomassi, Xavier Gonze","doi":"10.1038/s41524-025-01765-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01765-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We present an efficient implementation of the Zero Static Internal Stress Approximation (ZSISA) within the Quasi-Harmonic Approximation framework to compute anisotropic thermal expansion and elastic constants from first principles. By replacing the costly multidimensional minimization with a gradient-based method that leverages second-order derivatives of the vibrational free energy, the number of required phonon band structure calculations is significantly reduced: only six are needed for hexagonal, trigonal, and tetragonal systems, and 10–28 for lower-symmetry systems to determine the temperature dependence of lattice parameters and thermal expansion. This approach enables accurate modeling of anisotropic thermal expansion while substantially lowering computational cost compared to standard ZSISA method. The implementation is validated on a range of materials with symmetries from cubic to triclinic and is extended to compute temperature-dependent elastic constants with only a few additional phonon band structure calculations.</p>","PeriodicalId":19342,"journal":{"name":"npj Computational Materials","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}