Analysis of hydrogen in Nb/Cu multilayers using ion beams

Abstract The dependence of the H concentration on the layer thickness in H-charged Nb/Cu multilayer samples has been studied using 15 N nuclear reaction analysis and high-energy elastic recoil detection. This system shows a smooth increase in H concentration in the Nb layers with increasing layer thickness. The H concentration shows a tendency towards saturation as the thickness increases. The relative concentrations are independent of the total amount of incorporated H in the measured range up to about 40 at.%. These results are also independent of the stacking order of the layers.