Scientific instruments are essential research assets, yet they remain largely invisible in the persistent identifier (PID) ecosystem. "Materials Instruments" addresses this gap by developing an open infrastructure that improves the discoverability, interoperability, and reuse of scientific instruments in materials science while strengthening FAIR research infrastructures.
"Materials Instruments" is a new service of the FID Materials Science (Specialised Information Service Materials Science) aiming at the community of researchers in the materials sciences.. The project allowed collection and distribution of instrument metadata from heterogeneous sources and prepares them for integration into the PID ecosystem. A central component is the planned assignment of DOIs to instrument records, enabling reliable citation and cross-linking between instruments, publications, datasets, and research institutions. This talk presents practical implementation steps and lessons learned, including challenges related to metadata aggregation, licensing, governance, and community adoption when integrating instruments into the broader PID ecosystem.