Al2O3-dispersed Yb2O3-stabilized cubic-ZrO2 (YbSZ) composites are fabricated by pressureless sintering of composite powders to obtain fine and homogeneous microstructures by the solution chemistry route. Al2O3 particles are deposited on ZrO2 powders by the precipitation of aluminum nitrate followed by calcination in air. The sinterability of the composites was affected by the calcination temperature. Microstructures of the sintered bodies are dependent on the Al2O3 content. For the5 vol% Al2O3-dispersed composite, fine Al2O3 particles were mainly located insidethe grains of zirconia, whereas relatively large Al2O3 particles almost dispersed at the grain boundaries when the Al2O3 content was increased. The grain growth of YbSZ was suppressed by the Al2O3 addition, and the refinement of the matrix grain improved the fracture strength of YbSZ. The YbSZ and YbSZ/Al2O3 composites exhibited almost similar ionic conductivity at high temperatures of around 1000 °C.

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.

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 new approach for one-dimensional photonic bandgap formation is introduced. The method consists of wafer bonding and delamination, which is capable of stacking single crystalline semiconductor layers on non-crystalline insulator layers. Si and SiO2 layers with sub-wavelength periodicity are successfully stacked to form photonic crystals consisting of 3 pairs without a defect layer and of 4.5 pairs with a defect layer. The transmittance spectra are well reproduced by transfer matrix calculations. This clearly verifies the potential of the wafer bonding and delamination method.