Operating Nanobeams in a Quantum Fluid

Abstract

Microelectromechanical (MEMS) and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) are ideal candidates for exploring quantum fluids since they can be manufactured reproducibly, cover the frequency range from hundreds of kilohertz up to gigahertz and usually have very low power dissipation. Their small size offers the possibility of probing the superfluid on scales comparable to, and below, the coherence length. That said, there have been hitherto no successful measurements of NEMS resonators in the liquid phases of helium. Here we report the operation of doubly-clamped aluminum nanobeams in superfluid ${}^4$He at temperatures spanning the superfluid transition. The devices are shown to be very sensitive detectors of the superfluid density and the normal fluid damping. However, a further and very important outcome of this work is the knowledge that now we have demonstrated that these devices can be successfully operated in superfluid ${}^4$He, it is straightforward to apply them in superfluid ${}^3$He which can be routinely cooled to below 100\,$\mu$K. This brings us into the regime where nanomechanical devices operating at a few MHz frequencies may enter their mechanical quantum ground state.

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Nanoscale Real-Time Detection of Quantum Vortices at Millikelvin Temperatures
• Probing superfluid ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ with high-frequency nanomechanical resonators down to $\mathrm{mK}$ temperatures
• Nanomechanical resonators for cryogenic research
• Detecting the "phonon wind" in superfluid ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ by a nanomechanical resonator
• Phonon coupling between a nanomechanical resonator and a quantum fluid
• High quality factor mechanical resonance in a silicon nanowire
• Dimensional control of tunneling two level systems in nanoelectromechanical resonators
• Fully suspended nano-beams for quantum fluids
• Sixty Years of Quantized Circulation
• Drag on Cylinders Moving in Superfluid 3He-B as the Dimension Spans the Coherence Length