Over the last 40 years, high throughput experimentation has been demonstrated to be an effective approach to generate huge amount of material data in a short period of time, and it is now considered a key element of Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) to fulfill its promise to deliver materials of emerging importance with much faster paces and lower costs. In this article, the briefly history for high throughput materials synthesis and characterization is recalled. A series of representative techniques are reviewed, their limitations are identified, and the challenges and future trends are analyzed. In perspective, a facility consisting of in-situ real time materials processing, characterization and analysis based on synchrotron light sources or spallation neutron sources, as well as the original position statistic reflecting mapping technology for non-uniform materials are likely to play important role in the future generation high throughput material experimentation.

high throughput experimentation  /  high throughput characterization  /  materials genomics  /  synchrotron  /  spallation neutron source  /  statistic reflecting mapping