Lightweight sodium alanate thin films grown by reactive sputtering

We report the preparation of sodium alanate, a promising hydrogen storage material, in a thin film form using cosputtering in a reactive atmosphere of atomic hydrogen. We study the phase formation and distribution, and the hydrogen desorption, with a combination of optical and infrared transmission spectroscopy. We show that the hydrogen...

Quasifree Mg–H thin films

The thermodynamics of hydrogen absorption in Pd-capped Mg films are strongly dependent on the magnesium thickness. In the present work, we suppress such dependency by inserting a thin Ti layer between Mg and Pd. By means of optical measurements, we show that the surface energy contribution to the destabilization of MgH2 is negligible. The...