Physics-Informed AI for Material Characterization: A Perspective on Data-Efficient Discovery through Physics-Informed Neural Networks

Accurate characterization of material properties is critical for modeling and optimizing advanced systems, yet conventional experimental and simulation-based approaches remain costly and data-intensive. As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves from data-driven modeling to physics-informed and knowledge-guided paradigms, this Perspective highlights the role of physics-informed machine learning (PIML), specifically physics-informed neural networks (PINNs), as a key enabler of data-efficient, physically consistent inference. PINNs embed governing equations into the learning process and have demonstrated strong capability in recovering constitutive and transport parameters from sparse or noisy data while preserving physical fidelity. This Perspective examines the fundamental structure, workflow integration, and recent advances of PINNs in the context of inverse material characterization. It also discusses open challenges in computational cost, training stability, and uncertainty quantification. Looking forward, integration with digital twins, generative modeling, and autonomous experimentation presents a pathway toward interpretable, adaptive, and automated characterization for next-generation intelligent manufacturing.