Production of Mg-Based Amorphous/Nanostructured Thin Films From Multi-Elemental Sources for Hydrogen Storage Applications

A study was carried out for the production of Mg-based amorphous/nanostructured thin films from multi-elemental evaporation sources via thermal evaporation. Sources produced were Mg-Cu, Mg-Cu-Ni, Mg-Cu-Al, Mg-Cu-Al-Ni and all prepared by traditional powder metallurgy routes. The powder compacts in the as-sintered state were made of equilibrium phases and individual elements, but upon deposition, due to interaction in the vapor phase, refined structure yielded amorphous like thin films. The structure further refined by the sorption of hydrogen. The study showed that the powder metallurgy approach is applied with success to deposit amorphous/nanostructured thin films via thermal evaporation, and further implies that if the phase analysis were to be used as an evaluation method for hydrogen sorption characteristics, some other techniques instead of X-ray diffraction analysis have to be considered.