Exploring Correlations Between Properties Using Artificial Neural Networks

The traditional aim of materials science is to establish the causal relationships between composition, processing, structure, and properties with the intention that, eventually, these relationships will make it possible to design materials to meet specifications. This paper explores another approach. If properties are related to structure at different scales, there may be relationships between properties that can be discerned and used to make predictions so that knowledge of some properties in a compositional field can be used to predict others. We use the physical properties of the elements as a dataset because it is expected to be both extensive and reliable and we explore this method by showing how it can be applied to predict the polarizability of the elements from other properties.