Transfer learning for accurate description of atomic transport in Al–Cu melts

Machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) provide an optimal balance between accuracy and computational efficiency and allow studying problems that are hardly solvable by traditional methods. For metallic alloys, MLIPs are typically developed based on density functional theory with generalized gradient approximation (GGA) for the exchange–correlation functional. However, recent studies have shown that this standard protocol can be inaccurate for calculating the transport properties or phase diagrams of some metallic alloys. Thus, optimization of the choice of exchange–correlation functional and specific calculation parameters is needed. In this study, we address this issue for Al–Cu alloys, in which standard Perdew–Burke–Ernzerhof (PBE)-based MLIPs cannot accurately calculate the viscosity and melting temperatures at Cu-rich compositions. We have built MLIPs based on different exchange–correlation functionals, including meta-GGA, using a transfer learning strategy, which allows us to reduce the amount of training data by an order of magnitude compared to a standard approach. We show that r2SCAN- and PBEsol-based MLIPs provide much better accuracy in describing thermodynamic and transport properties of Al–Cu alloys. In particular, r2SCAN-based deep machine learning potential allows us to quantitatively reproduce the concentration dependence of dynamic viscosity. Our findings contribute to the development of MLIPs that provide quantum chemical accuracy, which is one of the most challenging problems in modern computational materials science.