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Layering Transition in Superfluid Helium Adsorbed on a Carbon Nanotube Mechanical Resonator

Adrien Noury, Jorge Vergara-Cruz, Pascal Morfin, Bernard Plaçais, Maria C. Gordillo, Jordi Boronat, Sébastien Balibar, and Adrian Bachtold
Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 165301 – Published 23 April 2019
Physics logo See Synopsis: Discontinuous Jumps for Superfluid Helium Growth
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Abstract

Helium is recognized as a model system for the study of phase transitions. Of particular interest is the superfluid phase in two dimensions. We report measurements on superfluid helium films adsorbed on the surface of a suspended carbon nanotube. We measure the mechanical vibrations of the nanotube to probe the adsorbed helium film. We demonstrate the formation of helium layers up to five atoms thickness. Upon increasing the vapor pressure, we observe layer-by-layer growth with discontinuities in both the number of adsorbed atoms and the speed of the third sound in the adsorbed film. These hitherto unobserved discontinuities point to a series of first-order layering transitions. Our results show that helium multilayers adsorbed on a nanotube are of unprecedented quality compared to previous works. They pave the way to new studies of quantized superfluid vortex dynamics on cylindrical surfaces, of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition in this new geometry, and perhaps also to supersolidity in crystalline single layers as predicted in quantum Monte Carlo calculations.

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  • Received 17 September 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.165301

© 2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Fluid Dynamics

Synopsis

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Discontinuous Jumps for Superfluid Helium Growth

Published 23 April 2019

Experiments show that a superfluid helium film forming on a carbon nanotube grows layer by layer, with one layer fully forming before the next one starts.

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Authors & Affiliations

Adrien Noury1,*, Jorge Vergara-Cruz1, Pascal Morfin2, Bernard Plaçais2, Maria C. Gordillo3, Jordi Boronat4, Sébastien Balibar2, and Adrian Bachtold1

  • 1ICFO—Institut De Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology Mediterranean Technology Park, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain
  • 2Laboratoire de Physique de l’École normale supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris-Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
  • 3Departamento de Sistemas Físicos, Químicos y Naturales, Universidad Pablo de Olavide Carretera de Utrera, km 1, E-41013 Sevilla, Spain
  • 4Departament de Física, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, B4-B5 Campus Nord, 08034 Barcelona, Spain

  • *Present address: Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C), Univ Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France.

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Issue

Vol. 122, Iss. 16 — 26 April 2019

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