Ice Phase Classification Made Easy with Score-Based Denoising

Accurate identification of ice phases is essential for understanding various physicochemical phenomena. However, such classification for structures simulated with molecular dynamics is complicated by the complex symmetries of ice polymorphs and thermal fluctuations. For this purpose, both traditional order parameters and data-driven machine learning approaches have been employed, but they often rely on expert intuition, specific geometric information, or large training data sets. In this work, we present an unsupervised phase classification framework that combines a score-based denoiser model with a subsequent model-free classification method to accurately identify ice phases. The denoiser model is trained on perturbed synthetic data of ideal reference structures, eliminating the need for large data sets and labeling efforts. The classification step utilizes the smooth overlap of atomic position (SOAP) descriptors as the atomic fingerprint, ensuring Euclidean symmetries and transferability to various structural systems. Our approach achieves a remarkable 100% accuracy in distinguishing ice phases of test trajectories using only seven ideal reference structures of ice phases as model inputs. This demonstrates the generalizability of the score-based denoiser model in facilitating phase identification for complex molecular systems. The proposed classification strategy can be broadly applied to investigate structural evolution and phase identification for a wide range of materials, offering new insights into the fundamental understanding of water and other complex systems.