Using genetic algorithms to discover new nanostructured materials

Researchers at Columbia Engineering, led by Chemical Engineering Professors Venkat Venkatasubramanian and Sanat Kumar, have developed a new approach to designing novel nanostructured materials through an inverse design framework using genetic algorithms. The study, published in the October 28 Early Online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is the first to demonstrate the application of this methodology to the design of self-assembled nanostructures, and shows the potential of machine learning and "big data" approaches embodied in the new Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering at Columbia.

"Our framework can help speed up the materials discovery process," says Venkatasubramanian, Samuel Ruben-Peter G. Viele Professor of Engineering, and co-author of the paper. "In a sense, we are leveraging how nature discovers new materials—the Darwinian model of evolution—by suitably marrying it with computational methods. It's Darwin on steroids!"