Finite size effects: deuterium diffusion in nm thick vanadium layers

We investigate the effect of finite size on the chemical diffusion of deuterium in extremely thin V(001) layers. A five fold increase in the diffusion coefficient is observed at concentrations around 0.2 [D/V], when the thickness of the V is decreased from 28 to 14 atomic layers ( 2.1-4.2 nm). The size dependent deuterium-deuterium interaction energy is argued to be the root of the observed changes as the diffusion rates are similar at low concentrations. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using finite-size effects to enhance the chemical diffusion of light interstitials in solids. We discuss the general applicability of these effects to other systems.