Role of Large Language Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Accelerating Crystalline Material Discovery: A Systematic Review

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Hauptverfasser: Oche, Agada Joseph, Biswas, Arpan
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Oche, Agada Joseph
Biswas, Arpan
author_facet Oche, Agada Joseph
Biswas, Arpan
contents Large language models (LLMs) have emerged as powerful tools for knowledge-intensive tasks across domains. In materials science, to find novel materials for various energy efficient devices for various real-world applications, requires several time and cost expensive simulations and experiments. In order to tune down the uncharted material search space, minimizing the experimental cost, LLMs can play a bigger role to first provide an accelerated search of promising known material candidates. Furthermore, the integration of LLMs with domain-specific information via retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is poised to revolutionize how researchers predict materials structures, analyze defects, discover novel compounds, and extract knowledge from literature and databases. In motivation to the potentials of LLMs and RAG in accelerating material discovery, this paper presents a broad and systematic review to examine the recent advancements in applying LLMs and RAG to key materials science problems. We survey state-of-the-art developments in crystal structure prediction, defect analysis, materials discovery, literature mining, database integration, and multi-modal retrieval, highlighting how combining LLMs with external knowledge sources enables new capabilities. We discuss the performance, limitations, and implications of these approaches, and outline future directions for leveraging LLMs to accelerate materials research and discovery for advancement in technologies in the area of electronics, optics, biomedical, and energy storage.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_06691
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Role of Large Language Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Accelerating Crystalline Material Discovery: A Systematic Review
Oche, Agada Joseph
Biswas, Arpan
Materials Science
Machine Learning
Large language models (LLMs) have emerged as powerful tools for knowledge-intensive tasks across domains. In materials science, to find novel materials for various energy efficient devices for various real-world applications, requires several time and cost expensive simulations and experiments. In order to tune down the uncharted material search space, minimizing the experimental cost, LLMs can play a bigger role to first provide an accelerated search of promising known material candidates. Furthermore, the integration of LLMs with domain-specific information via retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is poised to revolutionize how researchers predict materials structures, analyze defects, discover novel compounds, and extract knowledge from literature and databases. In motivation to the potentials of LLMs and RAG in accelerating material discovery, this paper presents a broad and systematic review to examine the recent advancements in applying LLMs and RAG to key materials science problems. We survey state-of-the-art developments in crystal structure prediction, defect analysis, materials discovery, literature mining, database integration, and multi-modal retrieval, highlighting how combining LLMs with external knowledge sources enables new capabilities. We discuss the performance, limitations, and implications of these approaches, and outline future directions for leveraging LLMs to accelerate materials research and discovery for advancement in technologies in the area of electronics, optics, biomedical, and energy storage.
title Role of Large Language Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Accelerating Crystalline Material Discovery: A Systematic Review
topic Materials Science
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.06691