"Machine Learning Unveils Elusive Bragg Glass Phase in Materials Science"

Physicists at Cornell University have used a new machine learning data analysis tool to detect the elusive Bragg glass phase in the systematically disordered charge density wave (CDW) material, PdxErTe3, settling a long-standing question about its existence in real materials. The discovery, published in Nature Physics, was made possible by analyzing large volumes of X-ray data and using the machine learning tool X-ray Temperature Clustering (X-TEC) to identify subtle signatures of the Bragg glass phase, significantly advancing our understanding of the complex interplay between disorder and fluctuations in materials.