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Research Highlight | Center for Nanoscale Materials

Leveraging AI for improved X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers develop an AI-based approach, AI-NERD, to classify a colloidal glass’s relaxation dynamics without prior knowledge of the material, highlighting potential for autonomous materials discovery.

Scientific Achievement

An unsupervised deep learning framework allows automated classification of relaxation dynamics in a colloidal glass by using X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy without requiring prior physical knowledge of the material.

Significance and Impact

The AI-NERD model allows users to explore large, complex experimental datasets that would be difficult to otherwise interpret and can be adapted for other classes of materials.

Research Details

  • This model was applied to directly correlate microscopic dynamics with macroscopic properties of the model system.

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49381-z

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About Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials

The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit https://​sci​ence​.osti​.gov/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​-​a​t​-​a​-​G​lance.

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