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Main Author: Basu, Abhinaba
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10157
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author Basu, Abhinaba
author_facet Basu, Abhinaba
contents Band gap engineering of oxide semiconductors through doping is critical for photocatalysis and optoelectronics, yet the combinatorial space of dopant elements, substitution sites, and co-doping combinations far exceeds typical density functional theory (DFT) budgets. We screen doped candidates across five oxide hosts (ZnO, TiO2, SrTiO3, SnO2, MgO), culminating in a 529-candidate ZnO co-doping campaign, and identify Cu-containing co-doped ZnO systems as consistently achieving visible-light-range band gaps (1.0-1.8 eV), with Y2Cu2 co-doped ZnO as the optimal candidate (1.84 eV). A three-tier validation funnel (PBE, PBE+U, ionic relaxation) reveals that no single level of theory suffices: V-doped ZnO shifts from near-metallic to wide-gap upon Hubbard U correction, while Cu-doped SrTiO3 enters the visible-light window only after correcting for d-electron localization. To make this screening tractable, we introduce a multi-fidelity screening strategy that replaces 81% of DFT evaluations with computationally inexpensive surrogate predictions, reducing a 529-candidate closed-loop Quantum ESPRESSO campaign from an estimated 440 to 62 CPU-hours while finding the global optimum in 100% of 50 independent trials (p = 5.0e-8 versus random screening, Wilcoxon signed-rank). Cross-host analysis of the dopant-host interaction matrix reveals that dopant performance is governed by just two latent chemical dimensions, enabling prediction of rankings in unseen hosts. All 583 DFT calculations, screening code, and stability proofs are released as an open benchmark.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_10157
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Accelerated Dopant Screening in Oxide Semiconductors via Multi-Fidelity Contextual Bandits and a Three-Tier DFT Validation Funnel
Basu, Abhinaba
Materials Science
Machine Learning
Computational Physics
68T05, 82D25, 90C26, 62L05
I.2.6; J.2; G.1.6
Band gap engineering of oxide semiconductors through doping is critical for photocatalysis and optoelectronics, yet the combinatorial space of dopant elements, substitution sites, and co-doping combinations far exceeds typical density functional theory (DFT) budgets. We screen doped candidates across five oxide hosts (ZnO, TiO2, SrTiO3, SnO2, MgO), culminating in a 529-candidate ZnO co-doping campaign, and identify Cu-containing co-doped ZnO systems as consistently achieving visible-light-range band gaps (1.0-1.8 eV), with Y2Cu2 co-doped ZnO as the optimal candidate (1.84 eV). A three-tier validation funnel (PBE, PBE+U, ionic relaxation) reveals that no single level of theory suffices: V-doped ZnO shifts from near-metallic to wide-gap upon Hubbard U correction, while Cu-doped SrTiO3 enters the visible-light window only after correcting for d-electron localization. To make this screening tractable, we introduce a multi-fidelity screening strategy that replaces 81% of DFT evaluations with computationally inexpensive surrogate predictions, reducing a 529-candidate closed-loop Quantum ESPRESSO campaign from an estimated 440 to 62 CPU-hours while finding the global optimum in 100% of 50 independent trials (p = 5.0e-8 versus random screening, Wilcoxon signed-rank). Cross-host analysis of the dopant-host interaction matrix reveals that dopant performance is governed by just two latent chemical dimensions, enabling prediction of rankings in unseen hosts. All 583 DFT calculations, screening code, and stability proofs are released as an open benchmark.
title Accelerated Dopant Screening in Oxide Semiconductors via Multi-Fidelity Contextual Bandits and a Three-Tier DFT Validation Funnel
topic Materials Science
Machine Learning
Computational Physics
68T05, 82D25, 90C26, 62L05
I.2.6; J.2; G.1.6
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10157