Materials Database Query

The Fragmentation Problem in Computational Materials Data Materials Project, AFLOW, OQMD, and JARVIS-DFT each expose different APIs, different schemas, and different filter syntaxes. Querying all four for the same material requires four browser tabs, four query languages, and a spreadsheet to reconcile the results. That spreadsheet loses context fast. Which provider returned this formation energy value? What query produced this row? When was it fetched? Copy-paste between tabs strips that information silently, and you only notice when a reviewer asks for your data sources six months later. ...

OPTIMADE (Open Databases Integration for Materials Design) is a standardized REST API protocol for querying computational materials databases using a shared filter syntax. Thirteen databases currently support it, including Materials Project, AFLOW, OQMD, JARVIS-DFT, NOMAD, COD, TCOD, Materials Cloud, odbx, MPDS, and NREL Materials Database. The protocol was designed so that a single query string works uniformly across all participating databases. In practice, most researchers still open a separate browser tab for each one. ...