Quartz Tuning Fork Pressure Gauge for High-Pressure Liquid Helium

Acoustic damping of quartz tuning forks in normal and superfluid He3

“…The interaction of helium fluids with small mechanical resonators has traditionally being studied using vibrating wires, and has led to observations of the quantization of vortices in superfluid 4 He [1,2], nucleation of quantum turbulence [3,4], and Landau critical velocity in superfluid 3 He [5]. Developments in the manufacturing of electronic components and easy access to nanofabrication facilities have brought a plethora of other mechanical devices to helium research, for example quartz tuning forks [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23], micro and nanoelectromechanical devices (MEMS and NEMS) [24][25][26][27][28], optomechanical resonators [29][30][31], and carbon nanotubes [32]. Since the 2000s quartz tuning forks have become an established tool to investigate quantum solids [6] and liquids [7][8][9][10], where they have been used in studies of the viscosity [7], solubility of 4 He- 3 He mixtures [10], Andreev retroreflection of quasiparticle excitations in ...…”

“…The main reasons for the forks' popularity are their high intrinsic quality factor, commercial availability, compact size, and the ease of use. Their working procedures are well documented [8,11,33] and after calibration they can be used as temperature probes [8,12] or pressure gauges [14,15].…”