Electron crystallization on liquid helium
ID: electron-crystallization-on-liquid-helium
The 1979 experiment of C. C. Grimes and colleagues studied a two-dimensional sheet of electrons above liquid helium. It reported crystallization at densities to , with melting temperatures to . The sheet was classical: Coulomb energy competed with thermal motion, unlike the kinetic-energy comparison used for a zero-temperature degenerate Wigner crystal. It supplies evidence for electron ordering while keeping these two physical regimes distinct.[ref]
Evidence for a Liquid-to-Crystal Phase Transition in a Classical, Two-Dimensional Sheet of Electrons by C. C. Grimes and others. Physical Review Letters 42, pp. 795–798, abstract: classical sheet and reported density and melting-temperature intervals
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