Effect of uniaxial strain on the site occupancy of hydrogen in vanadium from density-functional calculations

Abstract

We investigate the influence of uniaxial strain on the site occupancy of hydrogen in vanadium, using density functional theory. The site occupancy is found to be strongly influenced by the strain state of the lattice. The results provide the conceptual framework for the atomistic description of the observed hysteresis in the to phase transition in bulk, as well as the preferred octahedral occupancy of hydrogen in strained V layers.