MPOD: A Material Property Open Database linked to structural information

Inspired by the Crystallography Open Database (COD), the Material Properties Open Database (MPOD) was given birth. MPOD aims at collecting and making publicly available at no charge tensorial properties (including scalar properties) of phases and linking such properties to structural information of the COD when available. MPOD files are written with the STAR file syntax, used and developed for the Crystallographic Information Files. A dictionary containing new definitions has been written according to the Dictionary Definition Language 1, although some tricks were adopted to allow for multiple entries still avoiding ambiguousness. The initial set includes mechanical properties, elastic stiffness and compliance, internal friction; electrical properties, resistivity, dielectric permittivity and stiffness, thermodynamic properties, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, diffusivity and expansion; electromechanical properties, piezoelectricity, electrostriction, electromechanical coupling; optical properties; piezooptic and photoelastic properties; superconducting properties, critical fields, penetration and coherence lengths. Properties are reported in MPOD files where the original published paper containing the data is cited and structural and experimental information is also given. One MPOD file contains information relative to only one publication and one phase. The files and the information contained therein can also be consulted on-line at http://www.materialproperties.org. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.