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In the development of solid state sensors used in steelmaking processes, for truly effective research, it is essential that basic studies be conducted in close cooperation with instrument manufacturers and the steel community. In this context, the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science has a Sensor Sub-Committee; the members include 23 representatives from industries and 13 university professors. A complete summary of the research activities of the sub-committee has been published in Japanese, while this paper is aimed at briefly reporting such collaborate research works for other audience rather than the Japanese.

Based on collaborate research works, solid state sensor which allows rapid determinations of chromium concentration or activities in molten iron has been developed by the Chromium Sensor Research Group, Sensor Subcommittee, 19 Committee for Steelmaking, Japanese Society for Promotion of Science. A knowledge of chromium contents in molten steel can be obtained within 15 s.

The electrochromic characteristics of annealed thin films of the La 2 O 3 WO 3 binary system have been studied by potentiostatic and galvanostatic measurements and spectrophotometry. Direct current was supplied to the cell assembly ITO|H 2 SO 4 |La 2 O 3 WO 3 |ITO, where ITO is indium tin oxide. It was found that the electrochromic characteristics of the annealed thin films were significantly different from those of the as-deposited thin films. The rates of colouration and bleaching of the annealed thin films could be determined to be the diffusion-limited step in the thin film and the space-charge-limited step respectively. However, the bleaching of the as-deposited thin films did not depend on the applied voltage. Therefore, the rate-limiting step could not be explained by the space-charge-limited model.