Composition spreads of La1-xSrxCoO3 (LSCO) were synthesized as thermo-electric transducer material by means of combinatorial material synthesis, and information on their thermal diffusivity throughout the specimens was obtained. Meanwhile, it is anticipated that the composition spreads of LSCO have a variety of characteristic properties of light absorption corresponding to their composition, namely their compositional variable, x. Hence, we used transient optical pump-and-probe techniques in a reflection geometry to measure thermal diffusion times on LSCO. The results of signal analysis indicate that LSCO is a peculiar synthesized substance whose apparent thermal diffusivity, 1/ι, changes abruptly at the critical point, where the compositional variable x is equal to 0.3.

A scanning microwave microscope (Sm M) for high-throughput characterization of combinatorial dielectric materials has been developed using a lumped constant resonator probe. The probe consists of a microwave oscillator module equipped with a thin conducting needle and an outer conductor ring, which detects the dielectric constant of the sample just beneath the needle as a frequency shift of the resonator. The quantitative analysis of the dielectric constant for the bulk and the thin-film samples was carried out based on the measurement of gap-length dependence of the frequency shift. The analysis method was successfully applied to the characterization of composition-spread BaxSr1-xTiO3 thin film sample. The evaluation of far-field contribution to the frequency shift was found to be crucial for the accurate determination of dielectric constant especially in the characterization of combinatorial thin films.

The thermal diffusivities throughout a composition-spread film comprising La1- xSrxCoO3 series were determined by Transient Reflecting Grating (TRG) measurements. Thermal diffusivities of transparent SrCoO3 film and SrTiO3 substrate were determined by using third harmonics having wavelength of 266 nm as an excitation light with only a certain length of grating spacing. The thermal diffusivities of them were 0.02 and 0.05 cm2/s, respectively. With regard to untransparent thin films, the experiment was performed by setting three kinds of grating spacing for the excitation light having the fundamental wavelength, 800 nm in order to obtain high precision. The distribution profile of obtained values of the thermal diffusivity throughout the sample was traced as 0.06 - 0.18 - 0.01 cm2/s corresponding to the variation of in La1-xSrxCoO3, thus showing a convex profile, however, this anomalous profile was verified by comparing with the data obtained by the X-ray diffractometer.

A cometary globule in IC1396 named ”comet tail 6” by Osterbrock (1957), has been observed at CO and 13CO (J = 1-0) lines with a high spatial resolution, 14″, with the 45-m radio telescope at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory. The resolution corresponds to a linear size of 0.05 pc at the distance of 750 pc (Matthews 1979). Two possible pre-main sequence stars, LkHα 349 and LkHα 349/c (Cohen and Kuhi 1979), associated with small nebulosities nestle in the central part of the globule. We have obtained CO and 13CO spectra long NS and EW strips which cross each other at the position of LkHα 349 and have mapped a 1.5′x1.5′ area around the globule center at 13CO. Results from the observations are summarized as follows: