cond-mat.mtrl-sciApr 14, 2026

Finetuning-Free Diffusion Model with Adaptive Constraint Guidance for Inorganic Crystal Structure Generation

Authors: Auguste de Lambilly, Vladimir Baturin, David Portehault, Guillaume Lambard, Nataliya Sokolovska, Florence d'Alché-Buc, Jean-Claude Crivello

Organizations: CNRS-Saint-Gobain-NIMS, IRL 3629, Laboratory for Innovative Key Materials and Structures (LINK), 1-1 Namiki, 305-0044 Tsukuba, Japan · LTCI, Télécom Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France · Laboratoire de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Paris (LCMCP), Sorbonne Université, CNRS, 4 place Jussieu, F-75005 Paris, France · Data-driven Materials Design Group, Center for Basic Research on Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, Ibaraki, Tsukuba, Namiki 1-1, 305-0044 Japan · Laboratory of Computational, Quantitative, and Synthetic Biology (CQSB), Sorbonne Université, CNRS, 4 place Jussieu, F-75005 Paris, France

Abstract

Generative diffusion models have emerged as powerful tools for the discovery of inorganic crystal structures, yet steering their sampling process toward user-defined physical and chemical objectives remains challenging. We present a computational framework that integrates adaptive constraint guidance into a pre-trained crystal diffusion model, enabling the generation of candidate structures that satisfy targeted structural and chemical requirements without model retraining. The approach incorporates differentiable constraint functions directly during sampling, providing an interpretable mechanism for expert-driven exploration of the crystal structure space. To assess the reliability of generated candidates, we introduce a multi-stage validation workflow combining descriptor-based analysis, duplicate removal, comparison with reference crystal databases, graph neural network energy prediction, and thermodynamic stability evaluation through convex-hull analysis. The framework is applied to several classes of inorganic compounds and to constraints involving atomic volume, local coordination environments, and near-neighbor structural motifs. Results demonstrate that adaptive guidance effectively redirects the sampling distribution toward structures exhibiting the desired characteristics while preserving chemical plausibility. Subsequent validation reveals which generated candidates remain viable after energetic and thermodynamic screening. The proposed methodology provides a practical and transparent strategy for incorporating expert knowledge into crystal generative models and establishes a general computational framework for constrained materials discovery.

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