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.
- Received 17 September 2018
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.165301
© 2019 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Synopsis
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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