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Here we report a photonic annealing process for yttria-stabilized zirconia films, which are one of the most well-known solid-state electrolytes for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Precursor films were coated using a wet-chemical method with a simple metal-organic precursor solution and directly annealed at standard pressure and temperature by two cycles of xenon flash lamp irradiation. The residual organics were almost completely decomposed in the first pre-annealing step, and the fluorite crystalline phases and good ionic conductivity were developed during the second annealing step. These films showed properties comparable to those of thermally annealed films. This process is much faster than conventional annealing processes (e.g. halogen furnaces); a few seconds compared to tens of hours, respectively. The significance of this work includes the treatment of solid-state electrolyte oxides for SOFCs and the demonstration of the feasibility of other oxide components for solid-state energy devices.

In this study, non-destructive evaluation using photo-mixer terahertz technique was studied to visualize the hidden damage in composite structures. A terahertz wave system was developed based on photo-mixer to detect the internal defects of the composite structure, and foreign material was simulated in a glass fiber-reinforced plastic (GFRP) specimen using PET film coated with silver nano-wire. For the visualization, an imaging algorithm for terahertz signal processing and stage control was developed using a GUI based on LABVIEW. The inspection was performed using the developed continuous terahertz inspection system and the terahertz waveform acquired in the single frequency was used to visualize defects.