The discrete evolution of the structure of hydrogenated palladium-based alloys

The discrete character of the diffraction-angle dependence of displacements in the position of the components of diffraction peaks of hydrogenated Pd-Mo and Pd-Ta alloys is established using precise x-ray diffractometry. Such behavior is interpreted in terms of discontinuous transitions between long-lived metastable states under the assumption of a multivalley structure of the thermodynamic potential in k space. This assumption makes it possible to explain the fact that the components of diffraction reflections were narrow over the storage time (which was as long as several thousand hours).