Coupling and proximity effects in the superfluid transition in 4He dots

Abstract

The superfluid transition in 4 He is associated with the onset of an order parameter that is a macroscopic wavefunction. This is similar to the onset of superconductivity in metals and alloys. Yet, some of the hallmark phenomena that are associated with wavefunctions, and are evident in superconductors, have not been identified in 4 He. Here we report proximity effects on the specific heat and superfluid density of a thin 4 He film in equilibrium with an array of larger boxes of 4 He. Comparison with previous data also enables us, by scaling, to deduce an excess specific heat associated with a collective behaviour of weakly coupled boxes. These effects should be relevant to the understanding of experiments where helium has been studied when confined in packed powders, porous materials or other inhomogeneous confinements, where proximity and collective effects must be present but not readily quantifiable 1,2 . Our work also forms a point of comparison and contrast with the case of superconductors 3,4 , and is relevant to studies of Josephson effects in superfluids, coupling effects in arrays of Bose-condensed atoms 5,6 , and magnetic systems where, because of chemical composition, two separate but interacting ordering transitions take place 7,8 .In the case of superconductors, coupling and proximity effects have been well understood for many years. The large correlationlength amplitude ξ 0 makes coupling between two superconductors easy to achieve. Weak links with dimensions of the order of ξ 0 , which can be a metal, an insulator or another superconductor, enable measurements of the familiar Josephson effects (see for instance ref. 9). With 4 He these effects are much more difficult to achieve because ξ 0 is of the order of interatomic dimensions. Furthermore, weak links and coupling between two regions of 4 He cannot be achieved through any material other than 4 He. We can, however, take advantage of the growth of the correlation length with temperature T and critical exponent ν, ξ = ξ 0 |1 − T /T λ | −ν ≡ ξ 0 t −ν near the transition temperature T λ and construct apertures whereby analogous Josephson effects can be realized 10,11 .We are unaware of any theory that describes the effects on thermodynamic properties of a 'grain' or dot of helium due to a coupling to another dot through a weak link, or, for that matter, how this coupling is affected by the geometry or 'strength' of this link. This question arose while attempting to verify finite-size scaling for zero-dimensional crossover 12 . We had measured the heat capacity of helium in arrays of (1 µm) 3 and (2 µm) 3 boxes linked by channels of 1 µm × 1 µm × 0.019 µm and 2 µm × 2 µm × 0.010 µm respectively. These data did not scale anywhere in the critical region 13 . The lack of scaling is unexpected, because for both twoand one-dimensional crossover, at least for T > T λ , other data do scale 14 . More significantly, an analysis of the zero-dimensional data suggested that the smaller boxes had a higher heat capacity than expected 13 . This might result from ...

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