skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Heat capacity of quantum adsorbates: Hydrogen and helium on evaporated gold films

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/286267· OSTI ID:286267
 [1]
  1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics

The author has constructed an apparatus to make specific heat measurements of quantum gases adsorbed on metallic films at temperatures between 0.3 and 4 K. He has used this apparatus to study quench-condensed hydrogen films between 4 and 923 layers thick with J = 1 concentrations between 0.28 and 0.75 deposited on an evaporated gold surface. He has observed that the orientational ordering of the J = 1 molecules depends on the substrate temperature during deposition of the hydrogen film. He has inferred that the density of the films condensed at the lowest temperatures is 25% higher than in bulk H{sub 2} crystals and have observed that the structure of those films is affected by annealing at 3.4 K. The author has measured the J = 1 to J = 0 conversion rate to be comparable to that of the bulk for thick films; however, he found evidence that the gold surface catalyzes conversion in the first two to four layers. He has also used this apparatus to study films of {sup 4}He less than one layer thick adsorbed on an evaporated gold surface. He shows that the phase diagram of the system is similar to that for {sup 4}He/graphite although not as rich in structure, and the phase boundaries occur at different coverages and temperatures. At coverages below about half a layer and at sufficiently high temperatures, the {sup 4}He behaves like a two-dimensional noninteracting Bose gas. At lower temperatures and higher coverages, liquidlike and solidlike behavior is observed. The Appendix shows measurements of the far-infrared absorptivity of the high-{Tc} superconductor La{sub 1.87}Sr{sub 0.13}CuO{sub 4}.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC03-76SF00098
OSTI ID:
286267
Report Number(s):
LBNL-38980; ON: DE96013825; TRN: 96:023271
Resource Relation:
Other Information: TH: Thesis (Ph.D.); PBD: Jun 1996
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English