title: Metallic nanowires and mesoscopic networks on a free surface of superfluid helium and charge-shuttling across the liquid-gas interface.
abstract: We investigate the motion of electrically charged metallic nano- and microparticles produced by laser ablation in He gas and injected into superfluid helium. In the presence of a vertical static electric field, the particles either perform a repetitive shuttle-like motion transporting the charge across the liquid-gas interface or become trapped under the free surface of liquid He and coalesce into long filaments and complex two-dimensional mesoscopic networks. A classical electrohydrodynamic model is used to describe the motion of charged microparticles in superfluid He. The resulting filaments and networks are analyzed using electron microscopy. It is demonstrated that each filament is in fact composed of a large number of nanowires with a characteristic diameter of order of 10 nm and extremely large aspect ratios.
authors.affiliation: RIKEN, Center for Emergent Matter Science, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, 351-0198 Saitama, Japan. petr.moroshkin@riken.jp.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Moroshkin
authors.affiliation: RIKEN, Center for Emergent Matter Science, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, 351-0198 Saitama, Japan. petr.moroshkin@riken.jp and Institute of Physics, Kazan Federal University, Kremlyovskaya st. 18, 420008 Kazan, Russia.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Batulin
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, Universitätstrasse 10, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Leiderer
authors.affiliation: RIKEN, Center for Emergent Matter Science, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, 351-0198 Saitama, Japan. petr.moroshkin@riken.jp and Institute of Physics, Kazan Federal University, Kremlyovskaya st. 18, 420008 Kazan, Russia and Institute of Physics, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kono