Elements Live

CALL THIS FIRST for a literature question about chemistry, materials or physics research -- a broad one ('what matters in X') or a specific process or parameter one (a deposition condition, a property value, a defect mechanism). Send the question in plain words (q), or a paper you already know (paper: DOI or title). Returns reading lists in four lenses: relevant (the papers whose TITLE AND ABSTRACT best match the question, across the whole corpus, BM25 -- start here for a specific question), foundational (the classics the question's own papers cite most), now (highest impact, young papers' citations projected) and newest (last two years); plus the research communities and element sub-communities the question is about, with why each matched and whether it is rising. Put the question's key terms in q: filler words are ignored. unmatched_terms lists words that matched nothing; rephrase those. Each paper carries its DOI, a one-line reason and its abstract where one is on file. Our corpus is curated, not complete: the relevant lens also brings up to 3 of every 10 results from OpenAlex, marked source='openalex' and labelled not yet curated. One page = up to 10 papers per lens; ask for page 2+ only if needed. Requires a Personal+ account. Without a key, pay per call: $0.05 in USDC on Base or Solana via x402 (send the payment in _meta["x402/payment"]).

Get current Research Intensity (RIS) for one of the 118 chemical elements, with a citation URL. No API key needed. Historical RI (HRI) is included with a Personal+ key.

Resolve a free-text query (a compound, material, or research topic) to its subject_type/subject_id for use with get_subject_ri. Free with any API key. Without a key, pay per call: $0.01 in USDC on Base or Solana via x402 (send the payment in _meta["x402/payment"]).

Get RI, RIS, HRI and paper count for one research topic/keyword/sector. Requires a Personal+ account -- call search_subjects first to resolve subject_type/subject_id. Without a key, pay per call: $0.01 in USDC on Base or Solana via x402 (send the payment in _meta["x402/payment"]).

Full yearly (or monthly) RIS/HRI history for one topic/keyword/sector. Requires a Personal+ account. Without a key, pay per call: $0.10 in USDC on Base or Solana via x402 (send the payment in _meta["x402/payment"]).

The top papers for one research topic (resolve it with search_subjects first) -- title, DOI, venue, year, citations. Use it when asked what to READ about a specific topic, rather than how active it is. sort=impact (default) favours recent, well-cited work; sort=foundational gives the most-cited classics; sort=newest the latest. Each paper carries its abstract where one is on file (about 6 in 10). Requires a Personal+ account. Capped at 100 papers with no pagination. Without a key, pay per call: $0.02 for up to 20 papers, $0.10 for up to 100, in USDC on Base or Solana via x402 (send the payment in _meta["x402/payment"]).

The top papers for one element, narrowed with keyword to one of its materials or applications (e.g. symbol='Al', keyword='aluminum nitride'; the keyword must name one of the element's topics exactly, case aside -- search_subjects finds topic names). Returns title, DOI, venue, year, citations. sort=impact (default) favours recent, well-cited work; sort=foundational gives the most-cited classics; sort=newest the latest. Each paper carries its abstract where one is on file (about 6 in 10). Requires a Personal+ account. Capped at 100 papers with no pagination. Without a key, pay per call: $0.02 for up to 20 papers, $0.10 for up to 100, in USDC on Base or Solana via x402 (send the payment in _meta["x402/payment"]).

Scope a multi-term question with a boolean filter: +must -exclude "exact topic" (a OR b) wild* year:2015..2026, over element symbols or names and EXACT topic names (e.g. +Li +Co "solid electrolyte" -sulfide). Words that are neither are DROPPED, and wildcards can expand into unrelated fields: read `warnings` first -- it lists every dropped term with the nearest topics, every abbreviation read as a topic, and every wildcard expansion. Returns how many papers match, by year and by research community, the nearest broader query when nothing matches, and a quote_id that lab_run turns into the ranked papers. Narrow filters (two elements + one topic) work best. Requires a Professional+ account. Without a key, pay per call: $0.01 in USDC on Base or Solana via x402 (send the payment in _meta["x402/payment"]).

Get the papers for a lab_quote: pass its quote_id and a depth (papers_20 or papers_100) to get the top papers matching the quoted filter, ranked by impact, with the curation behind each rank. Each paper carries its abstract where one is on file (about 6 in 10). A stale or expired quote is refused. Requires a Professional+ account. Without a key, pay per call: the quoted price of the depth, less the $0.01 quote credit in USDC on Base or Solana via x402 (send the payment in _meta["x402/payment"]).