Research Project Outline
Ubiquitous impurities of absorbed hydrogen dramatically affect the electric and mechanical properties of solids as realized in microelectronic devices, hydrogen embrittlement, Hstorage, and H-induced metal-insulator transition. Due to the light mass and nuclear spin, quantum effects such as the possible delocalization of the hydrogen atoms are furthermore of profound fundamental interest. This project therefore aims to develop a micro-beam nuclear reaction detection technique, which will allow mapping out the hydrogen distribution in solids in all three dimensions with sub-micrometer resolution, even under atmospheric conditions. In addition the quantum-mechanical wavefunction of surface hydrogen can be observed directly in momentum space by means of Doppler-spectroscopy.