metadata
license: cc-by-4.0
task_categories:
- reinforcement-learning
tags:
- stem-microscopy
- electron-microscopy
- materials-science
- gymnasium
- benchmark
- dose-efficiency
- autonomous-microscopy
pretty_name: STEMGym
size_categories:
- 1K<n<10K
STEMGym: A Gymnasium Environment for Benchmarking Dose-Efficient Autonomous Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy
This dataset accompanies the STEMGym benchmark — a Gymnasium-based environment for evaluating autonomous dose-efficient scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) agents.
Dataset Description
STEMGym provides simulated STEM specimens as HDF5 world files. Each world contains:
- Overview image: Low-magnification survey of the full specimen
- Tile grid: High-resolution STEM-HAADF images (128x128 px tiles, 4px overlap, stride=124) arranged in an 8x8 grid
- Ground truth annotations: Atom positions, defect types, and phase maps for scoring
- Metadata: Pixel size, accelerating voltage, detector geometry, material parameters
Materials
| Material | Zone Axis | FOV | Defect Types | Task |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SrTiO3 | [001] | ~100 nm | O vacancies clustered along grain boundary | Defect Census |
| BaTiO3 | [001] | ~100 nm | Cubic/tetragonal phase boundaries + O vacancies | Phase Mapping + Defect Census |
| SiGe | [110] | ~50 nm | Ge substitutions concentrated in one quadrant | Targeted Characterization |
| GaN | [11-20] | ~80 nm | InGaN quantum-well substitutions | Defect Census |
| Pt nanoparticles | — | ~60 nm | Pt nanoparticles on amorphous carbon | Particle Census |
Difficulty Levels
Each material is provided at three difficulty levels:
| Level | Vacancy Rate | Phonon Configs | Dose (e-/A^2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 5% | 4 | 1e4 |
| Medium | 3% | 8 | 5e3 |
| Hard | 1% | 16 | 1e3 |
Files
Simulated Worlds (worlds/)
| File | Material | Difficulty | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
test_world.h5 |
Synthetic (Gaussian blobs) | — | 9.7 MB |
replay_world.h5 |
Synthetic (replay validation) | — | 2.5 MB |
srtio3_clustered_easy.h5 |
SrTiO3 | Easy | 884 MB |
srtio3_clustered_medium.h5 |
SrTiO3 | Medium | 884 MB |
srtio3_clustered_hard.h5 |
SrTiO3 | Hard | 885 MB |
batio3_interface_easy.h5 |
BaTiO3 | Easy | 911 MB |
batio3_interface_medium.h5 |
BaTiO3 | Medium | 911 MB |
batio3_interface_hard.h5 |
BaTiO3 | Hard | 911 MB |
sige_gradient_clustered_easy.h5 |
SiGe | Easy | 150 MB |
sige_gradient_clustered_medium.h5 |
SiGe | Medium | 148 MB |
sige_gradient_clustered_hard.h5 |
SiGe | Hard | 147 MB |
gan_easy.h5 |
GaN | Easy | 451 MB |
gan_medium.h5 |
GaN | Medium | 449 MB |
gan_hard.h5 |
GaN | Hard | 448 MB |
pt_nanoparticles_easy.h5 |
Pt | Easy | 129 MB |
pt_nanoparticles_medium.h5 |
Pt | Medium | 129 MB |
pt_nanoparticles_hard.h5 |
Pt | Hard | 129 MB |
Model Checkpoints (checkpoints/)
| File | Model | Description | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
atom_finder.pt |
AtomFinderUNet | Atomic column detection ensemble (3 members) | 88 MB |
defect_classifier.pt |
DefectClassifierCNN | Defect type classification | 1.4 MB |
phase_identifier.pt |
PhaseIdentifierResNet | Material phase identification | 7.4 MB |
dqn_agent.zip |
DQN (SB3) | RL navigation baseline | 0.8 MB |
ppo_agent.zip |
PPO (SB3) | RL navigation baseline | 1.0 MB |
sac_agent.zip |
SAC (SB3) | RL navigation baseline | 8.4 MB |
Transfer Checkpoints (checkpoints/transfer/)
Material-specific analyst models trained on individual materials for transfer experiments:
| Directory | Contents |
|---|---|
transfer/srtio3/ |
atom_finder.pt, defect_classifier.pt, phase_identifier.pt, training_metadata.json |
transfer/batio3/ |
atom_finder.pt, defect_classifier.pt, phase_identifier.pt, training_metadata.json |
transfer/sige/ |
atom_finder.pt, defect_classifier.pt, phase_identifier.pt, training_metadata.json |
transfer/gan/ |
atom_finder.pt, defect_classifier.pt, phase_identifier.pt, training_metadata.json |
HDF5 World Format
Each world file follows this layout:
/metadata/
pixel_size_nm # Physical pixel size
tile_size_px # Tile dimensions (128)
grid_shape # Grid dimensions (rows, cols)
fov_nm # Field of view in nm
scenario # Material/scenario name
difficulty # easy / medium / hard
/overview # (H, W) low-res overview image
/tiles/{row}_{col} # (128, 128) float32 normalized HAADF tiles
/ground_truth/
atom_positions # (N, 2) in nm
atom_types # (N,) int [0=pristine, 1=vacancy, 2=substitution]
defect_mask # (N,) bool
defect_types # (N,) str ["pristine"/"vacancy"/"substitution"]
phase_map # (H, W) int32, optional
/valid_region # (H, W) bool
Usage
# Install STEMGym
pip install -e .
# Download this data
python stem_gym/scripts/download_data.py
# Run a benchmark
stemgym run --agent raster_equipped --task defect_census --world srtio3_clustered_easy --seeds 3
License
This dataset is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.
Citation
@inproceedings{polat2026stemgym,
title={STEMGym: A Gymnasium Environment for Benchmarking Dose-Efficient Autonomous Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy},
author={Polat, Can},
year={2026}
}