Comparison of electrochromic characteristics of electrochromic device upon various sintering methods of sol-gel based WO3 electrode

Tungsten oxide is an electrochromic material, from which thin films are conventionally fabricated via heat treatment. Here, we develop a flash light sintering method to reduce sintering time; sintering delivers instantaneous photon energy created via the photothermal effect. The electrochromic efficiency of device with a flash light-sintered electrode was 88.50 cm2/C, about 1.46-fold greater than that of the device with a heat-sintered electrode. The diffusion coefficients of the former device were 1.35- and 1.46-fold greater than those of the latter device during bleaching and coloring, respectively. Therefore, a new way of sintering electrode was studied to show that the device with flash light–sintered electrode demonstrate better electrochromic performance than the device with heat-sintered one by enabling amorphous phase formation.