Machine Learning for Scanning Probe Microscopy for Materials Discovery

Speaker : Prof. Sergei V. Kalinin Affiliation : University of Tennessee, USA Region : Europe Year : 2022 Language : English Machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) are rapidly becoming an indispensable part of physics research, with domain applications ranging from theory and materials prediction to high-throughput data analysis. However, the constantly emerging question is how to match the correlative nature of classical ML with hypothesis-driven causal nature of physical sciences. In parallel, the recent successes in applying ML/AI methods for autonomous systems from robotics through self-driving cars to organic and inorganic synthesis are generating enthusiasm for the potential of these techniques to enable automated and autonomous experiment (AE) in imaging. In this presentation, I will discuss recent progress in automated experiment in scanning probe microscopy, ranging from feature to physics discovery via active learning. The applications of classical deep learning methods in streaming image analysis are strongly affected by the out of distribution drift effects, and the approaches to minimize though are discussed. We further present invariant variational autoencoders as a method to disentangle affine distortions and rotational degrees of freedom from other latent variables in imaging and spectral data. The analysis of the latent space of autoencoders further allows establishing physically relevant transformation mechanisms. I will further illustrate transition from post-experiment data analysis to active learning process, including learning structure-property relationships and materials discovery in composition spread libraries. Here, the strategies based on simple Gaussian Processes often tend to produce sub-optimal results due to the lack of prior knowledge and very simplified (via learned kernel function) representation of spatial complexity of the system. Comparatively, deep kernel learning (DKL) methods allow to realize both the exploration of complex systems towards the discovery of structure-property relationship, and enable automated experiment targeting physics (rather than simple spatial feature) discovery. The latter is illustrated via experimental discovery of microstructural origins of ferroelectric domain dynamics and ferroelectric non-linearities in PFM. For composition spread libraries, I will demonstrate the combination of the structured Gaussian process and reinforcement learning, the approach we refer to as hypothesis learning. The further applications of hypothesis learning towards physics discovery in SPM are discussed.