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Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 6 April 2013.
Jan Petter Maehlen, Trygve T. Mongstad, Chang Chuan You, Smagul Karazhanov
Institute for Energy Technology, NO-2027 Kjeller, Norway
Abstract
A strong photochromic effect was recently discovered in thin films of oxygen-containing yttrium hydride taking place at room temperature and reacting to ultraviolet and visible light. In this paper, we report on a lattice contraction upon illumination observed for thin-film samples of photochromic yttrium hydride, recorded by time-resolved X-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation. The time dependence of the lattice contraction is consistent with the observed photochromic response of the samples.