High-Throughput NEB for Li-Ion Conductor Discovery via Fine-Tuned CHGNet Potential

TL;DR

This paper introduces a high-throughput NEB framework combined with fine-tuned machine learning potentials to efficiently discover fast-ion conductors for solid-state batteries, balancing speed and accuracy.

Contribution

It develops an automated, accelerated NEB method using a fine-tuned ML potential, enabling large-scale screening of lithium-ion conductors with improved efficiency.

Findings

Identified promising orthorhombic structures as fast ion conductors.

Predicted aliovalent-doped variants with low activation energies.

Achieved high ionic conductivities in candidate materials.

Abstract

Solid-state electrolytes are essential in the development of all-solid-state batteries. While density functional theory (DFT)-based nudged elastic band (NEB) and ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) methods provide fundamental insights on lithium-ion migration barriers and ionic conductivity, their computational costs make large-scale materials exploration challenging. In this study, we developed a high-throughput NEB computational framework integrated with the fine-tuned universal machine learning interatomic potentials (uMLIPs), enabling accelerated prediction of migration barriers based on transition state theory for the efficient discovery of fast-ion conductors. This framework automates the construction of initial/final states and migration paths, mitigating the inaccurate barriers prediction in pretrained potentials due to the insufficient training data on high-energy states. We employed the fine-tuned CHGNet model into NEB/MD calculations and the dual CHGNet-NEB/MD achieves a balance between computational speed and accuracy, as validated in NASICON-type Li$_{1+x}$Al$_x$Ti$_{2-x}$(PO$_4$)$_3$ (LATP) structures. Through high-throughput screening, we identified orthorhombic Pnma-group structures (LiMgPO$_4$, LiTiPO$_5$, etc.) which can serve as promising frameworks for fast ion conductors. Their aliovalent-doped variants, Li$_{0.5}$Mg$_{0.5}$Al$_{0.5}$PO$_4$ and Li$_{0.5}$TiPO$_{4.5}$F$_{0.5}$, were predicted to possess low activation energies, as well as high ionic conductivity of 0.19 mS/cm and 0.024 mS/cm, respectively.