Protocol for Clustering 4DSTEM Data for Phase Differentiation in Glasses

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Kumar, Mridul, Rakita, Yevgeny
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Kumar, Mridul
Rakita, Yevgeny
author_facet Kumar, Mridul
Rakita, Yevgeny
contents Phase-change materials (PCMs) such as Ge-Sb-Te alloys are widely used in non-volatile memory applications due to their rapid and reversible switching between amorphous and crystalline states. However, their functional properties are strongly governed by nanoscale variations in composition and structure, which are challenging to resolve using conventional techniques. Here, we apply unsupervised machine learning to 4-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) data to identify compositional and structural heterogeneity in Ge-Sb-Te. After preprocessing and dimensionality reduction with principal component analysis (PCA), cluster validation was performed with t-SNE and UMAP, followed by k-means clustering optimized through silhouette scoring. Four distinct clusters were identified which were mapped back to the diffraction data. Elemental intensity histograms revealed chemical signatures change across clusters, oxygen and germanium enrichment in Cluster 1, tellurium in Cluster 2, antimony in Cluster 3, and germanium again in Cluster 4. Furthermore, averaged diffraction patterns from these clusters confirmed structural variations. Together, these findings demonstrate that clustering analysis can provide a powerful framework for correlating local chemical and structural features in PCMs, offering deeper insights into their intrinsic heterogeneity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_00943
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Protocol for Clustering 4DSTEM Data for Phase Differentiation in Glasses
Kumar, Mridul
Rakita, Yevgeny
Materials Science
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Phase-change materials (PCMs) such as Ge-Sb-Te alloys are widely used in non-volatile memory applications due to their rapid and reversible switching between amorphous and crystalline states. However, their functional properties are strongly governed by nanoscale variations in composition and structure, which are challenging to resolve using conventional techniques. Here, we apply unsupervised machine learning to 4-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) data to identify compositional and structural heterogeneity in Ge-Sb-Te. After preprocessing and dimensionality reduction with principal component analysis (PCA), cluster validation was performed with t-SNE and UMAP, followed by k-means clustering optimized through silhouette scoring. Four distinct clusters were identified which were mapped back to the diffraction data. Elemental intensity histograms revealed chemical signatures change across clusters, oxygen and germanium enrichment in Cluster 1, tellurium in Cluster 2, antimony in Cluster 3, and germanium again in Cluster 4. Furthermore, averaged diffraction patterns from these clusters confirmed structural variations. Together, these findings demonstrate that clustering analysis can provide a powerful framework for correlating local chemical and structural features in PCMs, offering deeper insights into their intrinsic heterogeneity.
title Protocol for Clustering 4DSTEM Data for Phase Differentiation in Glasses
topic Materials Science
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00943