Quantum-Annealing Enhanced Machine Learning for Interpretable Phase Classification of High-Entropy Alloys

Abstract

High entropy alloys (HEAs) offer unprecedented compositional flexibility for designing advanced materials, yet predicting their crystallographic phases remains a key bottleneck due to limited data and complex phase formation behavior. Here, we present a quantum-enhanced machine learning framework that leverages quantum annealing to enhance phase classification in HEAs. Our pipeline integrates Quantum Boosting (QBoost) for interpretable feature selection and classification, with Quantum Support Vector Machines (QSVM) that use quantum-enhanced kernels to capture nonlinear relationships between physical descriptors. By reformulating both models as Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problems, we exploit the efficient sampling capabilities of quantum annealers to achieve rapid training and robust generalization, demonstrating notable runtime reductions relative to classical baselines in our setup. We target six key phases: FCC, BCC, Sigma, Laves, Heusler, and AlXY B2, and benchmark model performance using both cross-validation and a rigorously curated test set of prior experimentally synthesized HEAs. The results confirm strong alignment between predicted and measured phases. Our findings demonstrate that quantum-enhanced classifiers match or exceed classical models in accuracy and offer insights grounded in interpretable physical descriptors. This work constitutes an important step toward practical quantum acceleration in materials discovery pipelines.