Probing the Fine Structure of the (4)He Crystal Interface by (3)He Atoms

摘要

The growth dynamics of c-facets of (sup 4)He crystals has been studied atmilliKelvin temperatures in the presence of small concentrations of (sup 3)He atoms in the liquid. The authors find that in the sprial growth regime interaction of (sup 3)He atoms with moving elementary steps on the surface results in additional friction. The authors' results are compared with the theory, where high-frequency zero-point oscillations of the steps are taken into account. There is a rather good agreement, if the authors assume an effective step width of 8 nm.