Mechanical Response of He Films Adsorbed on Graphite with a Quartz Tuning Fork.

We have carried out quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM) experiments of 32 kHz quartz tuning fork for He films adsorbed on Grafoil, and have measured the temperature dependence of the resonance frequency and Q value for various areal densities. It was found that the frequency does not decrease exactly in proportion to the areal density. This means that the film still undergoes decoupling partly, although it is strongly suppressed from that of 5 MHz QCM measurements. Above the three-atom thick film, the decoupling due to the superfluidity of the overlayer is observed. In addition, we found that the competition between the superfluidity and the slippage takes place for a large oscillation amplitude. From the comparison with 5 MHz QCM measurements, it is concluded that the acceleration of substrate plays an important role in the slippage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]