Proximity effects on H absorption in ultrathin V layers

Abstract

We discuss proximity effects on the hydrogen uptake in 14 atomic layers of vanadium. The enthalpy and entropy of solution were measured and compared to ab initio density functional calculations. We show that there exists a large difference in the hydrogen uptake of V in Cr/V and Fe/V superlattices, in which the V is under close to identical strain states. The calculations show that neither local strain effects nor charge redistributions can be the cause for the observed effect. This leaves magnetic and long ranged elastic strain fields---neither captured by the current calculations---as possible mechanisms for the observed effects.