cantly; however, the quantum yields are still far from unity, and reproducibility
is an issue. Improving the NPL quality or that of any NC dispersion is an ardu-
ous task, involving a vast possible number of parameters relating to composition
and fabrication. Synthesizing all of these is both infeasible and unnecessary, as it
is possible to create robust and data-efficient predictors to describe the outcome
of changes in fabrication parameters.Mayr et al. [2022] Artificial neural networks
(ANNs) have been widely used to approximate the quantities of interest,Chen
and Pao [2019], Regonia et al. [2020] but success has also been achieved with,
e.g., random forests and support vector machines. Baum et al. [2020], Rickert
et al. [2021] It seems clear that no algorithm is universally superior, but rather
each may be more suited for specific applications.Wolpert and Macready [1997]
Despite their impressive results, these methods occasionally suffer from extrap-
olation into areas of input space with sparse or no data. Therefore, material
science is a fertile ground for applying methods with inbuilt uncertainty quan-
tification functionalities, such as Gaussian processes (GPs), which are especially
attractive given their data efficiency and robustness against overfitting.Li et al.
[2020], Zhang and Xu [2020], Seko and Ishiwata [2020] These methods provide
an excellent set of predictors to determine the effect that different fabrication
and chemical parameters have on the resulting material properties. Neverthe-
less, the optimal values of these parameters are not trivially determined. This
field has lately been dominated by Bayesian optimization. In this scheme, the
value of the predicted objective function is weighted against the intrinsic un-
certainty of the prediction to balance the exploration of new areas against the
exploitation of already acquired information.Balachandran et al. [2018], Voznyy
et al. [2019]. However, this has required a massive experimental effort to achieve
impressive results. In the future, models to optimize novel materials must fo-
cus on two aspects: incorporating multiple properties to increase the versatility
of the targeted materials and reducing the number of syntheses necessary to
achieve good results.
In this study, we develop a model addressing both of these issues as illus-
trated in Figure 1. By combining Gaussian processing with a neural network
and a random forest classifier, we can significantly reduce the demand for op-
timizing the synthesis of 2D CsPbBr3-based NPLs. The algorithm uses three
precursor amounts to predict the emission wavelength of the resulting NPLs
and the quality, i.e., the homogeneity of the photoluminescence (PL) spectra.
Starting from a pool of 100 initial syntheses, we carried out seven rounds of op-
timization. The algorithm produced 14 new precursor combinations, which were
then used for synthesis and the PL of the resulting dispersions measured. For
all previously synthesized NPL thicknesses (2-6 ML), we significantly reduced
the width and asymmetry of the PL emission, signifying higher homogeneity.
Additionally, the algorithm effectively predicted precursor combinations leading
to hitherto unobtained, thicker NPLs (7 and 8 MLs). The algorithm’s perfor-
mance was exceptional, especially considering the small amount of necessary
experimental synthesizing.
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