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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Operating nanobeams in a quantum fluid
AU - Bradley, David Ian
AU - George, Richard Edwin
AU - Guénault, Anthony Michael
AU - Haley, Richard Peter
AU - Kafanov, Sergey
AU - Noble, Theo
AU - Pashkin, Yuri
AU - Pickett, George Richard
AU - Poole, Malcolm
AU - Prance, Jonathan Robert
AU - Sarsby, Matt
AU - Schanen, Roch
AU - Tsepelin, Viktor
AU - Wilcox, Tom
AU - Zmeev, Dmitriy
PY - 2017/7/7
Y1 - 2017/7/7
N2 - 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 condensate 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 aluminium nanobeams in superfluid 4He 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 4He, it is straightforward to apply them in superfluid 3He which can be routinely cooled to below 100 μK. This brings us into the regime where nanomechanical devices operating at a few MHz frequencies may enter their mechanical quantum ground state.
AB - 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 condensate 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 aluminium nanobeams in superfluid 4He 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 4He, it is straightforward to apply them in superfluid 3He which can be routinely cooled to below 100 μK. This brings us into the regime where nanomechanical devices operating at a few MHz frequencies may enter their mechanical quantum ground state.
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-017-04842-y
DO - 10.1038/s41598-017-04842-y
M3 - Journal article
VL - 7
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
SN - 2045-2322
IS - 4876
ER -