Dual-Mode Standardization of Emerging Material Specifications: Structuring Measurement-Based Information for Market Decision-Making

Emerging materials often face challenges in market adoption due to limited comparability and reliability of measurement-based material information, despite their potential to drive technological innovation. While standardization is widely recognized as an important mechanism for market diffusion, existing approaches provide limited insight into how material specifications facilitate the comparative evaluation of material characteristics and their use in market decision-making. This study proposes a complementary perspective that interprets standardization as an infrastructure for organizing the generation, sharing, and evaluation of measurement-based material information across industry, standard development organizations (SDOs), and markets. Within this framework, the study distinguishes between two complementary types of standards for material specifications. Type A standards enable the structured disclosure of measured characteristic values and associated measurement uncertainties, allowing application-specific evaluation without predefined acceptance criteria. In contrast, Type B standards define predefined characteristic values and compliance criteria, providing a basis for conformity assessment, certification, and quality assurance. These two types may be understood as complementary mechanisms that fulfill different functions of comparability and compliance under varying technological and market conditions in emerging material systems. Consequently, they contribute to both innovation-oriented market evaluation and quality-assured market acceptance.