EMMA MONTEVECCHI, R. Blossey
K.U.Leuven, lab. VSM, Belgio
Dimples in thin films of superfluid helium
It has been recently discovered in experiments [1] that Helium-4
undergoes a first order wetting phase transition weak binding metal
substrates such as Cesium
and Rubidium. There are interesting hysteresis effects connected to the
transition, since the lifetime of an undercooled wetting layer is
extremely long. Because of that it is very difficult to investigate
the hole formation and the decay of the film. A way to facilitate the hole
formation is to apply perturbations of the liquid-vapour interface.
A possible perturbation is rotation, which causes the formation of "dimples"
on the interface lowering the free energy barrier for hole nucleation [2].
- P.J. Nacher and J. Dupont-Roc,
Phys. Rev.Lett. 67, 2966 (1991)
- R. Blossey Phys. Rev. B 57, R14808 (1998)