
AMULTI-CATEGORY INVERSE DESIGN NEURAL NETWORK AND
ITS APPLICATION TO DIBLOCK COPOLYMERS
Dan Wei1,‡, Tiejun Zhou1,‡, Yunqing Huang1and Kai Jiang∗1
1Hunan Key Laboratory for Computation and Simulation in Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Intelligent
Computing and Information Processing of Ministry of Education, School of Mathematics and Computational Science,
Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, Hunan, China, 411105.
‡These authors contributed equally to this work.
October 26, 2022
ABSTRACT
In this work, we design a multi-category inverse design neural network to map ordered periodic
structure to physical parameters. The neural network model consists of two parts, a classifier and
Structure-Parameter-Mapping (SPM) subnets. The classifier is used to identify structure, and the SPM
subnets are used to predict physical parameters for desired structures. We also present an extensible
reciprocal-space data augmentation method to guarantee the rotation and translation invariant of
periodic structures. We apply the proposed network model and data augmentation method to two-
dimensional diblock copolymers based on the Landau-Brazovskii model. Results show that the
multi-category inverse design neural network is high accuracy in predicting physical parameters for
desired structures. Moreover, the idea of multi-categorization can also be extended to other inverse
design problems.
Keywords
Inverse design; Multi-category network; Reciprocal-space data augmentation method; Landau-Brazovskii
model; Diblock copolymers; Periodic structure.
1 Introduction
Material properties are mainly determined by microscopic structures. Therefore, to obtain satisfactory properties,
how to find desired structures is very important in material design. The formation of ordered structures directly relies
on physical conditions, such as temperature, pressure, molecular components, geometry confinement. However, the
relationship between ordered structures and physical conditions is extremely complicated and diversified. A traditional
approach is a trial-and-error manner, i.e., passively finding ordered structures for given physical conditions. This
approach, in terms of solving direct problem, is time-consuming and expensive. A wise way is inverse design that turns
to find physical conditions for desired structures.
In this work, we are concerned about the theoretical development of inverse design method for block copolymers. Block
copolymer systems are important materials in industrial applications since they can self-assemble into innumerous
ordered structures. There are many solving direct problem approaches of block copolymer systems, such as the first
principle calculation [
1
], Monte Carlo simulation [
2
,
3
], molecular dynamic [
4
], dissipative particle dynamics [
5
,
6
], self
consistent field simulation [
7
], and density functional theory [
8
]. In the past decades, a directed self-assembly (DSA)
method has been developed to inverse design block copolymers. Liu et al. [
9
] presented an integration scheme of block
copolymers directed assembly with 193 nm immersion lithography, and provided a pattern quality that was comparable
with existing double patterning techniques. Suh et al. [
10
] obtained nanopatterns via DSA of block copolymer films
with a vapour-phase deposited topcoat. Many DSA strategies have been also developed for the fabrication of ordered
square patterns to satisfy the demand for lithography in semiconductors [11, 12, 13, 14].
∗kaijiang@xtu.edu.cn
arXiv:2210.13453v1 [cond-mat.soft] 12 Oct 2022