2025/10/08 by Hale, Joshua, De Silva, Theja N.
#FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.07461
Driven by the growing demand in the energy, medical, and industrial sectors, we investigate a hydrogen isotope separation technique that offers both a high separation factor and economic feasibility. Our findings reveal that filtering isotopes through two-dimensional graphene layers provides an exceptionally efficient quantum-mechanical method for isotope separation. Using a recently developed analytical pairwise potential between hydrogen isotopes and carbon atoms in graphene, we examine the classical trajectories of isotopes near the graphene layer, as well as the quantum-mechanical tunneling properties of isotopes through the graphene layer. Using various quantum-mechanical methods, we calculate both the isotope tunneling probabilities and the quantum-mechanical isotope sticking probabilities. Our study shows that quantum filtering through graphene layers can be an effective technique for enriching deuterium by separating it from protium.