Switchable mirror effect

Switchable mirror effect The discovay 88 YH3 3 Infrared transmittance ... 

Though the discovery of switchable mirrors effect is an example of serendipity, the careful detailed analysis of the remarkable observations by the discoverers has triggered renewed research interest in rare earth metal hydride films both for understanding the basic physics underlying the phenomenon and the quest for potential technological applications. The extensive research in switchable mirrors based on R metals has lead to the following generations of switchable mirrors ... 

The deposition and electrical characterization of R metal and R hydride films have been reported in the seventies (e.g., Curzon and Singh (1978, 1979)). Since the discovery of the switchable mirror effect, a variety of techniques have been utilized to deposit R metal polycrystalline and epitaxial films e.g., molecular beam deposition (e.g., Huiberts et al. (1996b)), sputter deposition (e.g., van der Sluis et al. (1997), van der Sluis and Mercier (2001), Mercier and van der Sluis (2001)), pulsed laser deposition (e.g.. Dam et al. (2003)) and thermal evaporation (e.g., Mor and Malhotra (2000)). Typically for pure R metals films, a base pressure of 10 Pa, is an essential requirement (Huiberts et al., 1996b Wildes et al., 1996). Where as room temperature deposition resulted in polycrystalline films, a higher substrate temperature was utilized for depositing epitaxial films. Due to the higher... 

Since its discovery, most of the work on switchable mirror effect has been devoted to the study of hydrogen-induced changes in optical, electronic and structural properties in polycrystalline R metal films, as summarized in the previous section. Though some studies have been reported on single-crystalline films, for example Y films on (110) W substrates (Hayoz et al., 1998) and epitaxial Y films deposited on Nb coated (110) AI2O3 substrates (Wildes et al., 1996 Remhof et al., 1997, 1999), these samples were not suitable for optical and elec-... 

Hysteretic effects are considered in Section 7.2.3.3. Although papers have appeared on, for example Pr [107], Sm [108], Gd [109,110] and Dy hydrides [111] most investigations on switchable RE hydrides are dealing with Y. In this way Y has become the archetypal material for the first generation switchable mirrors. Scandium, although trivalent, does not form a trihydride under normal conditions (room temperature and 10 Pa) [112]. 

Aruna, B.R. Mehta, L.K. Malhotra, Faster H recovery in Pd nanoparticle layer based Gd switchable mirrors size-induced geometric and electronic effects. Appl. Phys. Lett. 87(10), 103101 (2005)... 

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