MIT News AI

A better way to model the behavior of metal alloys

MIT researchers’ approach captures subtle atomic patterns, improving predictions of material properties.

arXiv AI
5d ago

GBClaw: An agentic AI framework for atomistic grain boundary research and mechanistic discovery

arXiv:2610.28629v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) systems hold immense potential for automating complex workflows in materials discovery and design, but extending...

By Yazhuo Liu, Kunqing Ding, Xiaoguo Gong, Zifeng Wang, Yichen Yang, Yifeng Che, Wen Chen, Josh Kacher, Olivier Pierron, Shigenobu Ogata, Ting Zhu
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Oct 8

AtomWorld-Mirror: Macro-Step World Modeling of Critical Evolution Backbones for Materials Dynamics

AtomWorld-Mirror introduces a time‑aware macro‑step world model that condenses short micro‑event segments into physically reachable transitions between key atomic states. By predicting sparse structural edits and accumulated physical time through latent macro‑step dynamics, it replaces explicit micro‑event replay with efficient macro‑step inference. Experiments on five atomic systems—including Cu‑rich RPV steel, Cu‑Zr metallic glass, and Li₃N‑based solid electrolytes—show speedups of 10³ to 10⁴ times over traditional event‑by‑event simulation while maintaining structural validity and time semantics.

arXiv AI
Oct 9

AtomWorld-Mirror: Macro-Step World Modeling of Critical Evolution Backbones for Materials Dynamics

AtomWorld-Mirror is a time‑aware macro‑step world model that compresses short micro‑event segments into physically reachable transitions between key atomic states, predicting sparse structural edits and accumulated physical time through latent macro‑step dynamics. By enforcing local reachability, inventory conservation, and continuous‑time consistency, the model replaces explicit micro‑event replay with macro‑step inference, enabling substantially faster long‑term materials evolution simulations. Across five atomic systems—including Cu‑rich RPV steel irradiation aging, Cu‑Zr metallic glass, and Li₃N‑based anti‑perovskite solid electrolyte—the approach achieves speed‑ups of 10³ to 10⁴ times over traditional event‑by‑event simulation.

By Ziming Pan, Ruge Zhang, Haozhi Han, Junkai Zhou, Xingyuan Chen, Yifeng Chen, Yunquan Zhang, Ting Cao, Yunxin Liu, Kun Li
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 10

Atomistic Modeling of Chemical Disorder in Materials: Bridging Conventional Methods and AI-Assisted Approaches

The article reviews strategies for modeling chemical disorder in materials, addressing the gap between experimental descriptions of disorder and the detailed configurations required for atomistic simulations and AI workflows. It evaluates traditional approaches such as mean-field theories, cluster expansion, and Monte Carlo, alongside emerging AI-powered methods like universal interatomic potentials and generative models. The review also discusses how AI can accelerate computational schemes and enable disorder-native capabilities, providing a roadmap for integrating disorder into realistic AI-accelerated materials discovery.

By Jiayu Peng, Peichen Zhong
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 5

Coupled reaction and diffusion governing interface evolution in solid-state batteries

The study uses large‑scale, quantum‑accurate reactive simulations powered by active learning and deep equivariant neural network potentials to investigate the coupled reactions and diffusion at the interface of a symmetric solid‑state battery cell. Unsupervised clustering of local atomic environments reveals a previously unreported crystalline disordered phase, Li₂S₀.₇₂P₀.₁₄Cl₀.₁₄, in the solid‑electrolyte interphase (SEI), and explains experimental observations of SEI formation and lithium creep mechanisms that drive dendrite initiation. The work demonstrates a parameter‑free digital twin capable of providing atomistic insights into complex heterogeneous processes in solid‑state electrochemistry.

By Jingxuan Ding, Laura Zichi, Matteo Carli, Menghang Wang, Albert Musaelian, Yu Xie, Boris Kozinsky
arXiv AI
Sep 1

Evaluating LLM-based AI agents integrated with materials synthesis tools: the case of atomic layer deposition

The article reviews methods for assessing large language model (LLM) based AI agents in materials synthesis, focusing on their integration with experimental tools. It outlines evaluation strategies—including knowledge, reasoning, tool‑use, and closed‑loop benchmarks—and applies them to atomic layer deposition (ALD) as a case study. A practical framework for evaluating LLMs in this context is also presented.

By Angel Yanguas-Gil
MIT News AI
Oct 18

Giving AI a “crystal clear” view of the materials world

New research enables AI models to perceive crystalline materials in three dimensions, allowing them to better understand and analyze the structure of these materials. By providing a clearer, more detailed view of the materials world, the study enhances the AI’s ability to reason about material properties. This advancement could improve the accuracy and usefulness of AI-driven material science investigations.

By Zach Winn | MIT News
arXiv AI
Sep 2

Agentic programs: an emerging form of scientific software in computational materials science

The article introduces the concept of agentic programs—scientific software that blends deterministic algorithms with bounded large‑language‑model (LLM) judgment, task‑specific verification, episodic maturation, and full delegation in production. It argues that recent LLM‑based agents enable this new form of computational materials science software. The authors illustrate the idea with DeMARS, an agentic program designed to build atomistic models from experimentally measured disordered crystal structures.

By Yunsung Lim, Haekwan Jeon, Jaesun Kim, Jisu Kim, Seungwu Han
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 19

Evaluating Universal Machine Learning Force Fields Against Experimental Measurements

arXiv:2508. 05762v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Universal machine learning force fields (UMLFFs) promise to revolutionize materials science by enabling rapid atomistic simulations across the periodic table.

By Sajid Mannan, Vaibhav Bihani, Carmelo Gonzales, Kin Long Kelvin Lee, Nitya Nand Gosvami, Sayan Ranu, Santiago Miret, N M Anoop Krishnan
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 21

Transformers Discover Molecular Structure Without Graph Priors

The paper investigates whether machine learning models can uncover physical patterns in atomistic data without relying on traditional physics-based inductive biases such as geometric locality or graph structures. By training a general-purpose architecture on molecular simulation data, the authors demonstrate that the model autonomously learns interatomic interaction strengths resembling classical electrostatics and identifies interaction cutoffs aligned with established physical models. The study also reports predictable neural scaling behavior and competitive accuracy on certain metrics compared to physics-informed architectures, suggesting that explicit priors may only be necessary when empirically justified.

By Tobias Kreiman, Yutong Bai, Fadi Atieh, Elizabeth Weaver, Eric Qu, Aditi S. Krishnapriyan