Part I. An attempt to produce both thick and thinned flowing superfluid films. Part II. A study of the feasibility of verifying Lifshitz's theory of Van der Waals force for a metallic surface. Part III. The electrohydrodynamic instability of the super-thick helium film

Thesis/Dissertation · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1979

OSTI ID:5096971

Kwoh, D S.W.

In Part I, the problem of the thickness of a flowing helium film is investigated. Past experiments have either confirmed Kontorovich's prediction that the flowing film is thinner than the stationary film, or have observed no difference (e.g. the experiment by Keller (6)). Goodstein and Saffman have proposed a theory that tries to reconcile the difference in observations as the result of slightly different experimental conditions between different experiments. This experiment tried to test Goodstein-Saffman's theory by attempting to produce both thick and thinned flowing films in the same experimental setup but under slightly different conditions. A cell in which the temperature could be varied from about 0.5/sup 0/K to 1.9/sup 0/K was constructed and film thickness was measured by the capacitance technique. This result therefore (i) does not confirm Keller's result, which motivated Goodstein-Saffman's theory, (ii) shows that for Goodstein-Saffman's theory to be correct, the tau/sub 1/ in their theory would have to be much longer than one hour. The conclusion is that it is unlikely for any more stable state than the thinned film to exist. In Part II, the feasibility of verifying Lifshitz's theory of Van der Waals force is studied by measuring the helium film thickness on a nickel surface from a height of about 1.5 mm to 0 mm. In Part III, the existence of instability of the helium film under a strong electric field is investigated theoretically.

• Research Organization: California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5096971
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
HELIUM
FILM FLOW
CAPACITORS
ELECTRIC FIELDS
ELECTROHYDRODYNAMICS
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
INSTABILITY
NICKEL
OSCILLATIONS
SURFACES
THICKNESS
ULTRALOW TEMPERATURE
VAN DER WAALS FORCES
DIMENSIONS
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELEMENTS
EQUIPMENT
FLUID FLOW
FLUID MECHANICS
FLUIDS
GASES
HYDRODYNAMICS
MECHANICS
METALS
NONMETALS
RARE GASES
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
640450* - Fluid Physics- Superfluidity