Experimental data management platform for data-driven investigation of combinatorial alloy thin films

Abstract

Experimental materials data are heterogeneous and include a variety of metadata for processing and characterization conditions, making the implementation of data-driven approaches for developing novel materials difficult. In this paper, we introduce the Thin-Film Alloy Database (TFADB), a materials data management platform, designed for combinatorially investigated thin-film alloys through various experimental tools. Using TFADB, researchers can readily upload, edit, and retrieve multi-dimensional experimental alloy data, such as composition, thickness, x-ray diffraction, electrical resistivity, nanoindentation, and image data. Furthermore, composition-dependent properties from the database can easily be managed in a format adequate to be preprocessed for machine learning analyses. The high flexibility of the software allows the management of new types of materials data that can be potentially acquired from new combinatorial experiments.