Research Data Infrastructure for High-Throughput Experimental Materials Science

The High-Throughput Experimental Materials Database (HTEM-DB, htem.nrel.gov) is the endpoint repository for inorganic thin-film materials data collected during combinatorial experiments at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). This data asset is enabled by NREL’s Research Data Infrastructure (RDI) – a set of custom data tools that collect, process, and store experimental data and metadata. Here, we describe the experimental data-tool workflow from the RDI to the HTEM-DB to illustrate the strategies and best practices currently used for materials data at NREL. Integration of these data tools with experimental processes establishes a data communication pipeline between experimental and data science researchers. In doing so, this work motivates the creation of similar data workflows at other institutions to aggregate valuable data and increase their usefulness for future data studies. These types of efforts can greatly accelerate the pace of learning and discovery in the materials science domain, by making data accessible to new and rapidly evolving data analysis methods.