Hydrogen solution in tetrahedral or octahedral interstitial sites in Al

It is reported that H atoms prefer to stay at interstitial (defect) sites with larger space in most metals. However, H atom prefers to occupy tetrahedral interstitial sites (T-site) that provide smaller space than octahedral sites (O-site) in Al. This paper studied the H-Al interactions from first principles calculations. Through analysis of the H-induced electronic states and the local atomic relaxations, we show that H-Al bonding interaction is stronger for T-site H, which is in favor of the solution energy. On the other hand, larger local atomic distortion is observed around the T-site H, which increases the total energy. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.