The symmetry of vanadium’s crystal construction acts as a change for hydrogen’s quantum habits.
Inside a vanadium crystal, hydrogen can journey in two very other ways. It could transfer as a standard particle that wants sufficient vitality to leap between areas, or behave like a quantum wave that passes by boundaries. Researchers have now recognized the structural change that determines which route it takes.
The discovering may matter as demand grows for supplies that may safely retailer and transport hydrogen as a supply of cleaner vitality. Vanadium is a promising candidate as a result of it absorbs hydrogen readily and permits the atoms to maneuver by its crystal lattice, though the rationale for his or her altering habits had remained unsure.
Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science at The College of Tokyo mixed measurements of hydrogen construction and diffusion with quantum mechanical calculations. Their outcomes, printed in Nature Communications, show that the symmetry of the vanadium crystal controls whether hydrogen displays quantum or classical behavior.
Symmetry determines hydrogen’s route
Hydrogen travels through vanadium by moving among small open spaces within the crystal lattice. In the classical process, an atom must acquire enough thermal energy to cross the barrier separating one site from the next.
Quantum mechanics allows another possibility. Through tunneling, hydrogen can behave like a wave and pass through an energy barrier rather than climbing over it. Determining what controls this shift could help scientists design materials that store hydrogen and regulate its movement more efficiently.
“Our results show that crystal symmetry is key to controlling hydrogen’s quantum behavior,” says corresponding author Takahiro Ozawa. “Highly symmetric structures allow hydrogen to tunnel, while distorted structures suppress this effect.”
At low hydrogen concentrations, the vanadium lattice remains highly symmetrical. Neighboring sites are structurally equivalent under these conditions, allowing hydrogen atoms to tunnel between them and form delocalized quantum states that extend across several atomic locations.
As more hydrogen enters the material, the lattice becomes distorted. The loss of symmetry shuts down the equivalent pathways needed for tunneling, causing hydrogen to act more like a classical particle that depends on thermal energy to move.
“Crystal symmetry is the underlying switch that turns quantum behavior on or off,” explains senior author Katsuyuki Fukutani. “In a symmetric structure, hydrogen finds equivalent pathways that allow it to tunnel between sites. Distort that symmetry — as happens at higher hydrogen concentrations — and tunneling is suppressed, forcing hydrogen to rely on thermal energy to hop between sites instead.”
Atomic control could improve hydrogen materials
The discovery suggests that researchers could regulate hydrogen movement by designing materials with carefully controlled crystal symmetry. Adjusting that internal structure could determine whether hydrogen spreads through a material by quantum tunneling or slower, temperature-dependent hopping.
“The ability to control how hydrogen behaves could improve materials used for hydrogen storage and diffusion control,” remarks Sudhansu Sekhar Das, lead author. “These advances may benefit a wide range of hydrogen-based technologies involving transport and purification.”
As hydrogen technologies develop, controlling individual atoms inside storage and transport materials will become increasingly important. By identifying crystal symmetry as the switch between quantum and classical motion, the study provides a clearer foundation for designing materials that manage hydrogen more precisely.
Reference: “Impact of crystal symmetry lowering on proton tunneling” by S. S. Das, T. Ozawa, T. Kawauchi, H. Nakanishi and K. Fukutani, 15 July 2026, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-75020-w
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP18H05518, JP21H04650, JP24K17612, and JP25K24643; by JST PRESTO, Japan, Grant Number JPMJPR2504; and by the First Place Honor, Yayoi Award, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo.
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