April 25, 2024

Helium Bath Splash: Physicists Discover Surprising Phenomenon

Nanotechnology advantages
With this discovery, Paul Scheiers team not only improved their own measurement approach, but likewise got important insights for other research study groups that, for example, offer with the deposition of nanoparticles on surface areas. The truth that the generation of such nanofilms can often be really ineffective might likewise be related to the phenomenon now discovered in Innsbruck.
Referral: “Splashing of Large Helium Nanodroplets upon Surface Collisions” by Paul Martini, Simon Albertini, Felix Laimer, Miriam Meyer, Michael Gatchell, Olof Echt, Fabio Zappa and Paul Scheier, 23 October 2021, Physical Review Letters.DOI: 10.1103/ PhysRevLett.127.263401.
The work was financially supported, to name a few, by the Austrian Science Fund FWF and the province of Tyrol within the framework of a K-Regio job.

At the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics, Paul Scheiers research group has actually been using helium nanodroplets to study ions with methods of mass spectrometry for around 15 years. Using a supersonic nozzle, small, superfluid helium nanodroplets can be produced with temperature levels of less than one degree Kelvin. When the ions are loaded in a helium nanodroplet, they stay safeguarded on effect and fly off in all instructions with a couple of weakly bound helium atoms. “The ions are apparently protected by the helium,” Zappa says. The reality that this technique also works with negative ions, which are normally really delicate, suggests to the scientists a strong result of the formerly unknown phenomenon.

Ions crammed in a helium nanodroplet remain safeguarded on impact. Credit: Uni Innsbruck
While working with helium nanodroplets, scientists at the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics led by Fabio Zappa and Paul Scheier have discovered a surprising phenomenon: When the ultracold droplets struck a hard surface area, they act like drops of water. Ions with which they were previously doped hence remain safeguarded on impact and are not reduced the effects of.
At the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics, Paul Scheiers research group has actually been using helium nanodroplets to study ions with approaches of mass spectrometry for around 15 years. Utilizing a supersonic nozzle, tiny, superfluid helium nanodroplets can be produced with temperature levels of less than one degree Kelvin. Throughout their experiments, the researchers have actually now stumbled upon a fascinating phenomenon that has actually essentially altered their work.
A surprising phenomenon
When the ions are loaded in a helium nanodroplet, they remain safeguarded on effect and fly off in all instructions with a couple of weakly bound helium atoms. “The ions are obviously protected by the helium,” Zappa says. The truth that this approach likewise works with negative ions, which are generally really delicate, suggests to the scientists a strong result of the previously unknown phenomenon.