Abstract
Alkali metal surfaces have been suggested not to be wetted by helium at zero temperature. Several experiments have been realized to check if these surfaces, as well as other weak binding substrates, indeed exhibits this particularly interesting property at any finite temperature.
Although works are still in progress, essential results are (i) substrates non wetted by helium films do exist (ii) prewetting jumps from low to high coverage have been observed for weakly wetted ones (iii) the consequences of substrate roughness and chemical impurities are suspected to be important and remain to be assessed. These results are reviewed and discussed. Applications of those substrates for both3He and4He isotopes are considered.
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Unité de recherche de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure et de l'Université Pierre et Mavie Curie, associé au CNRS (URA 18).
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Bigelow, N., Nacher, P.J. & Dupont-Roc, J. Experimental approaches to the wetting transition with helium films. J Low Temp Phys 89, 135–144 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00692585
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00692585