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Main Authors: Liu, Shunshun, Booth, Talon R., Ji, Yangfeng, Reinhart, Wesley, Balachandran, Prasanna V.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22130
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author Liu, Shunshun
Booth, Talon R.
Ji, Yangfeng
Reinhart, Wesley
Balachandran, Prasanna V.
author_facet Liu, Shunshun
Booth, Talon R.
Ji, Yangfeng
Reinhart, Wesley
Balachandran, Prasanna V.
contents Large language models (LLMs) have shown promise for scientific data extraction from publications, but rely on manual prompt refinement. We present an expert-grounded automatic prompt optimization framework that enhances LLM entity extraction reliability. Using high-entropy alloy lattice constant extraction as a testbed, we optimized prompts for Claude 3.5 Sonnet through feedback cycles on seven expert-annotated publications. Despite a modest optimization budget, recall improved from 0.27 to > 0.9, demonstrating that a small, expert-curated dataset can yield significant improvements. The approach was applied to extract lattice constants from 2,267 publications, yielding data for 1,861 compositions. The optimized prompt transferred effectively to newer models: Claude 4.5 Sonnet, GPT-5, and Gemini 2.5 Flash. Analysis revealed three categories of LLM mistakes: contextual hallucination, semantic misinterpretation, and unit conversion errors, emphasizing the need for validation protocols. These results establish feedback-guided prompt optimization as a low-cost, transferable methodology for reliable scientific data extraction, providing a scalable pathway for complex LLM-assisted research tasks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_22130
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Expert-Grounded Automatic Prompt Engineering for Extracting Lattice Constants of High-Entropy Alloys from Scientific Publications using Large Language Models
Liu, Shunshun
Booth, Talon R.
Ji, Yangfeng
Reinhart, Wesley
Balachandran, Prasanna V.
Digital Libraries
Materials Science
Large language models (LLMs) have shown promise for scientific data extraction from publications, but rely on manual prompt refinement. We present an expert-grounded automatic prompt optimization framework that enhances LLM entity extraction reliability. Using high-entropy alloy lattice constant extraction as a testbed, we optimized prompts for Claude 3.5 Sonnet through feedback cycles on seven expert-annotated publications. Despite a modest optimization budget, recall improved from 0.27 to > 0.9, demonstrating that a small, expert-curated dataset can yield significant improvements. The approach was applied to extract lattice constants from 2,267 publications, yielding data for 1,861 compositions. The optimized prompt transferred effectively to newer models: Claude 4.5 Sonnet, GPT-5, and Gemini 2.5 Flash. Analysis revealed three categories of LLM mistakes: contextual hallucination, semantic misinterpretation, and unit conversion errors, emphasizing the need for validation protocols. These results establish feedback-guided prompt optimization as a low-cost, transferable methodology for reliable scientific data extraction, providing a scalable pathway for complex LLM-assisted research tasks.
title Expert-Grounded Automatic Prompt Engineering for Extracting Lattice Constants of High-Entropy Alloys from Scientific Publications using Large Language Models
topic Digital Libraries
Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22130