Resonant neutron reflectometry for hydrogen detection

L. Guasco, Yu. N. Khaydukov, S. Pütter, L. Silvi, M. A. Paulin, T. Keller and B. Keimer ()
Additional contact information
L. Guasco: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
Yu. N. Khaydukov: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
S. Pütter: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS) at Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ)
L. Silvi: Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin
M. A. Paulin: Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin
T. Keller: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
B. Keimer: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The detection and quantification of hydrogen is becoming increasingly important in research on electronic materials and devices, following the identification of the hydrogen content as a potent control parameter for the electronic properties. However, establishing quantitative correlations between the hydrogen content and the physical properties of solids remains a formidable challenge. Here we report neutron reflectometry experiments on 50 nm thick niobium films during hydrogen loading, and show that the momentum-space position of a prominent waveguide resonance allows tracking of the absolute hydrogen content with an accuracy of about one atomic percent on a timescale of less than a minute. Resonance-enhanced neutron reflectometry thus allows fast, direct, and non-destructive measurements of the hydrogen concentration in thin-film structures, with sensitivity high enough for real-time in-situ studies.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29092-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29092-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29092-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().