X-ray specular-reflectivity study of the liquid-vapor density profile of [sup 4]He

The helium liquid-vapor interfacial density profile has been measured with x-ray specular reflectivity. Measurements were performed on thick films of helium adsorbed onto atomically flat silicon substrates. Both the amplitude and the phase of the complex scattering amplitude of the helium-vapor interface were obtained from measured interference between reflections from the helium liquid-vapor interface and the silicon-helium interface. Films whose thickness varied from 15 A to 220 A over a range of temperatures from 1.1 K to 3.0 K were studied. At [ital T]=1.13 K the film thickness is 215 A and the interfacial width is 9.2[plus minus]1 A. No significant variation was seen in the interfacial widths measured at temperatures between 1.1 K and 1.8 K. Analysis of these measurements indicates that the interface is asymmetric, with the decay of the density into the vapor having the sharper falloff. The zero-K interfacial width extrapolated from the finite-temperature measurements with a quantized capillary-wave theory is 7.6[sub [minus]2][sup +1] A.