Nuclear Spin Relaxation Characteristic of Submonolayer ^3He Films in Nanochannels

In order to obtain information on dynamics of helium films in the nondegenerate fluid region, we have performed a pulsed-NMR experiment at 3.29 MHz on $^3$ He films adsorbed in straight 2.4 nm channels of FSM silicates down to 0.54 K. In general, the spin-lattice and spin-spin relaxation times $T_1$ and $T_2$ were explained in terms of the two-dimensional Bloembergen–Purcell–Pound model for dipolar relaxation. Temperature dependences of $T_1$ in submonolayer $^3$ He films show a minimum, indicating that the dipolar-field correlation time $\tau _\mathrm {c}$ is about $\omega ^{-1}=4.8\times 10^{-8}$ s. The temperature $T_\mathrm {min}$ of the $T_1$ minimum monotonically lowers with increasing coverage, suggesting that $^3$ He adatoms become more mobile at higher coverages. The low-dimensional property of $^3$ He adatoms is observed as the separation of $T_1$ and $T_2$ above $T_\mathrm {min}$ where $\omega \tau _\mathrm {c}<1$ . On the other hand, several features specific to films in the nanochannel geometry were also found. Especially, the temperature dependence of $T_2$ becomes very small just below $T_\mathrm {min}$ and shows a shoulder at lower temperatures. This anomaly has not been observed in $^3$ He adsorbed in wider pores or on flat surfaces, so that it is considered to be characteristic of $^3$ He films confined in narrow channels with a diameter of a few nm.