AlphaDiffract: Automated Crystallographic Analysis of Powder X-ray Diffraction Data

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Andrejevic, Nina, Du, Ming, Sharma, Hemant, Horwath, James P., Luo, Aileen, Yin, Xiangyu, Prince, Michael, Toby, Brian H., Cherukara, Mathew J.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Andrejevic, Nina
Du, Ming
Sharma, Hemant
Horwath, James P.
Luo, Aileen
Yin, Xiangyu
Prince, Michael
Toby, Brian H.
Cherukara, Mathew J.
author_facet Andrejevic, Nina
Du, Ming
Sharma, Hemant
Horwath, James P.
Luo, Aileen
Yin, Xiangyu
Prince, Michael
Toby, Brian H.
Cherukara, Mathew J.
contents Materials identification and structural understanding from powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) data is a long-standing challenge in materials science, fundamental to discovering and characterizing novel materials. A prerequisite for full structure solution is the accurate determination of the crystal lattice, including lattice parameters and crystallographic symmetries. Traditional methods for this are iterative and typically require expert input, and while existing deep learning approaches have shown promise, a robust, single-shot method for comprehensive lattice determination from experimental data remains a key goal. Here, we introduce AlphaDiffract, a deep learning framework that achieves state-of-the-art performance in predicting the crystal system, space group, and lattice parameters directly from PXRD patterns. AlphaDiffract utilizes a 1D adaptation of the ConvNeXt architecture, a modern convolutional neural network that integrates key design principles from transformers, coupled with dedicated prediction heads for each crystallographic property. The model is trained on the largest-to-date physics-based dataset of over 31 million simulated diffraction patterns, generated by augmenting 312,267 curated structures from the ICSD and Materials Project databases. Crucially, it demonstrates strong generalization to experimental data, achieving 81.7% crystal system accuracy and 66.2% space group accuracy on the RRUFF dataset while additionally predicting all six lattice parameters. By providing a unified model for rapid and accurate lattice determination from PXRD data, AlphaDiffract represents a significant step forward in leveraging deep learning for high-throughput materials discovery.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_23367
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AlphaDiffract: Automated Crystallographic Analysis of Powder X-ray Diffraction Data
Andrejevic, Nina
Du, Ming
Sharma, Hemant
Horwath, James P.
Luo, Aileen
Yin, Xiangyu
Prince, Michael
Toby, Brian H.
Cherukara, Mathew J.
Materials Science
Materials identification and structural understanding from powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) data is a long-standing challenge in materials science, fundamental to discovering and characterizing novel materials. A prerequisite for full structure solution is the accurate determination of the crystal lattice, including lattice parameters and crystallographic symmetries. Traditional methods for this are iterative and typically require expert input, and while existing deep learning approaches have shown promise, a robust, single-shot method for comprehensive lattice determination from experimental data remains a key goal. Here, we introduce AlphaDiffract, a deep learning framework that achieves state-of-the-art performance in predicting the crystal system, space group, and lattice parameters directly from PXRD patterns. AlphaDiffract utilizes a 1D adaptation of the ConvNeXt architecture, a modern convolutional neural network that integrates key design principles from transformers, coupled with dedicated prediction heads for each crystallographic property. The model is trained on the largest-to-date physics-based dataset of over 31 million simulated diffraction patterns, generated by augmenting 312,267 curated structures from the ICSD and Materials Project databases. Crucially, it demonstrates strong generalization to experimental data, achieving 81.7% crystal system accuracy and 66.2% space group accuracy on the RRUFF dataset while additionally predicting all six lattice parameters. By providing a unified model for rapid and accurate lattice determination from PXRD data, AlphaDiffract represents a significant step forward in leveraging deep learning for high-throughput materials discovery.
title AlphaDiffract: Automated Crystallographic Analysis of Powder X-ray Diffraction Data
topic Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.23367