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Inverse design in search of materials with target functionalities

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume 2, Article number: 0121 (2018) Cite this article

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Abstract

Solid-state chemists have been consistently successful in envisioning and making new compounds, often enlisting the tools of theoretical solid-state physics to explain some of the observed properties of the new materials. Here, a new style of collaboration between theory and experiment is discussed, whereby the desired functionality of the new material is declared first and theoretical calculations are then used to predict which stable and synthesizable compounds exhibit the required functionality. Subsequent iterative feedback cycles of prediction–synthesis–characterization result in improved predictions and promise not only to accelerate the discovery of new materials but also to enable the targeted design of materials with desired functionalities via such inverse design.

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Figure 1: Theoretical prediction, experimental synthesis and characterization of previously unreported compounds belonging to the 18e− ABX group.
Figure 2: Examples of artificial structures that can be grown.
Figure 3: Direct and inverse approaches for the design of materials.
Figure 4: The three modalities of inverse design of materials.
Figure 5: New material stability tests.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Science, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under grant no. DE-FG02-13ER46959, and by Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Sun Shot initiative under DE-EE0007366 and by the National Science foundation NSF Grant No. DMREF-13-34170. This work used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering.

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    Alex Zunger

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Zunger, A. Inverse design in search of materials with target functionalities. Nat Rev Chem 2, 0121 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-018-0121

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