Significance of materials informatics and the development of new materials

Abstract

Materials informatics is a fusion field of materials and information sciences, and has recently been attracting attention from both industry and academia because it has the potential to accelerate materials development beyond conventional materials science by incorporating the developments in information science into materials science. In this article, we first consider materials informatics from the historical paradigm, and then describe the expectations and significance of materials informatics. Then, we show that information technology does not solve a narrowly defined objective in materials science only, such as increasing simulation speed, but that concepts that have not existed in materials science so far are being produced through an integration with information science.