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The rapid development of universal machine learning potentials (uMLPs) has enabled efficient, accurate predictions of diverse material properties across broad chemical spaces. While their capability for modeling phonon properties is emerging, systematic benchmarking across chemically diverse systems remains limited. We evaluate six recent uMLPs—EquiformerV2, MatterSim, MACE, and CHGNet—on 2429 crystalline materials from the Open Quantum Materials Database. Models were used to compute atomic forces in displaced supercells, derive interatomic force constants (IFCs), and predict phonon properties including lattice thermal conductivity (LTC), compared with density functional theory and experimental data. The EquiformerV2 pretrained model trained on the OMat24 dataset exhibits strong performance in predicting atomic forces and third‐order IFCs, while its fine‐tuned counterpart consistently outperforms other models in predicting second‐order IFCs, LTC, and other phonon properties. Although MACE and CHGNet demonstrated comparable force prediction accuracy to EquiformerV2, notable discrepancies in IFC fitting led to poor LTC predictions. Conversely, MatterSim, despite lower force accuracy, achieved intermediate IFC predictions, suggesting error cancellation and complex relationships between force accuracy and phonon predictions. This benchmark guides the evaluation and selection of uMLPs for high‐throughput screening of materials with targeted thermal transport properties.
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Machine learned potential for high-throughput phonon calculations of metal—organic frameworks
Abstract Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are highly porous and versatile materials studied extensively for applications such as carbon capture and water harvesting. However, computing phonon-mediated properties in MOFs, like thermal expansion and mechanical stability, remains challenging due to the large number of atoms per unit cell, making traditional Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods impractical for high-throughput screening. Recent advances in machine learning potentials have led to foundation atomistic models, such as MACE-MP-0, that accurately predict equilibrium structures but struggle with phonon properties of MOFs. In this work, we developed a workflow for computing phonons in MOFs within the quasi-harmonic approximation with a fine-tuned MACE model, MACE-MP-MOF0. The model was trained on a curated dataset of 127 representative and diverse MOFs. The fine-tuned MACE-MP-MOF0 improves the accuracy of phonon density of states and corrects the imaginary phonon modes of MACE-MP-0, enabling high-throughput phonon calculations with state-of-the-art precision. The model successfully predicts thermal expansion and bulk moduli in agreement with DFT and experimental data for several well-known MOFs. These results highlight the potential of MACE-MP-MOF0 in guiding MOF design for applications in energy storage and thermoelectrics.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2326838
- PAR ID:
- 10635184
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Nature
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- npj Computational Materials
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2057-3960
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-025-01611-8
