It was noted that a non-metallic monolayer, on the surface of a metallic membrane, gave rise to a super-permeation of suprathermal H. This caused essentially all of the implanted flux to pass through the membrane; regardless of membrane temperature and thickness. The degradation of super-permeation at a sufficiently high energy of incident H particles was considered to be a natural result of sputtering of the monolayer. It was proved that Nb which contained impurity O would normally be super-permeable to suprathermal H at any incident energy, whereas the usual sensitivity to sputtering was conditioned by a NbC layer which was originally present at the real surface of the Nb.

Hydrogen Superpermeation Resistant to Ion Sputtering. A.I.Livshits, V.N.Alimov, M.E.Notkin, M.Bacal: Applied Physics Letters, 2002, 81[14], 2656-8