Back to results

University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign

Thermal vacancies in solid helium-3

Abstract

dc:description

Thermal vacancy concentrations in crystals of 3He have been determined from high precision measurements of the tem3 perature dependence of the x-ray lattice parameter. Bcc He 3 was studied for molar volumes ranging from 20.3 to 24.8 cm ; mole for which the melting temperatures range from 2.36 to 0.435K. It was found to contain about 0.5% thermal vacancies at melting, essentially independent of molar volume. A single hcp 3He crystal (18.8 cm3;mole) was studied, and was found to have 0.1% thermal vacancies at melting. From the measured vacancy concentrations free energies of formation are obtained and compared with results from NMR experiments. These comparisons suggest that in the bcc phase vacancies move by a tunneling process, while in the hcp phase their motion is thermally activated. Free volumes of formation are found from a comparison of the measured vacancy concentrations with existing thermal expansion and compressibility measurements. In the bcc phase the formation free volume is. found to vary from 0.4 va at 20 cm3 / mole to 0.2 va at 24.5 cm3 / mole, where va is an atomic volume. The apparent heat capacity of the vacancies is calculated and found to be unreasonably high. The possibility of vacancy non-localization is examined by applying a model based on the work of Hetherington to the volume of formation and vacancy heat capacity results.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph.D.
Level thesis:degree_level
Dissertation
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Physics
Year dc:date
2011

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Heald, Steve Michael
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Simmons, R.O.

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • 1976 Steve Michael Heald
Language dc:language
en

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Identifier
2674288
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/25652

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Base URL
www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Heald, Steve Michael. Thermal vacancies in solid helium-3. Dissertation thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/25652