Wetting properties of helium on the surface of Alkali metals, which is especially weakly attractive and, therefore, of small wettability, as opposed to all other known surfaces. In our experiments, the nuclear polarization is produced by optical pumping of the helium gas at 300K. Solid state LNA lasers, used and developed in our laboratory, deliver several watts at 1083 nm. Our efforts concentrate on studies of helium optical pumping in non-standard conditions of pressure and magnetic field. Simultaneously, our fundamental research program on liquid phases of polarized helium-3 is actively pursued. Experiments are done using double cells.
Polarization is produced in a room temperature volume.
It is connected by a tube to a low temperature part where the helium sample is liquefied and studied. Spin relaxation on the wall at low temperature is reduced by using cesium coatings. The magnetization lifetime is determined by dipole-dipole relaxation in bulk liquid. It is 5 min. Using sensitive pressure gauges and a temperature stabilized helium-3 cryostat specially developed in our laboratory, we aim at to measure the chemical potential of polarized liquid, through the determination of its saturating vapor pressure.