Structural Study of Adsorbed Helium Films: New Approach with Synchrotron Radiation X-rays

Abstract

A few atomic layers of helium adsorbed on graphite have been attracting much attention as one of the ideal quantum systems in two dimension. Although previous reports on neutron diffraction have shown fundamental structural information in these systems, there still remain many open questions. Here, we propose surface crystal truncation rod (CTR) scatterings using synchrotron radiation X-rays as a promising method to reveal surface and interface structures of helium films on graphite at temperatures below 2 K, based on the preliminary experimental results on a monolayer of He-4 on a thin graphite. Our estimation on heat generation by X-ray irradiations also suggests that CTR scatterings are applicable to even at system temperatures near 100 mK.

9 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Journal of Low Temperature Physics

References in corpus (2)

• Phase diagram of 4He adsorbed on graphite
• Superfluid and supersolid phases of 4He on the second layer of graphite

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Strain-induced superfluid transition for atoms on graphene
• Growth of uniform helium submonolayers adsorbed on single-surface graphite observed by surface X-ray diffraction
• On the Novel Superfluidity in the Second Layer of ${}^4$He on Graphite
• Simulations of Surface X-ray Diffraction from a Monolayer 4He Film Adsorbed on Graphite