Micro-Cantilever Anemometer for Cryogenic Helium

Julien Salort (1) , Alessandro Monfardini (1) , Philippe-Emmanuel Roche (1)

1 NEEL - HELFA - Hélium : du fondamental aux applications

We present a new anemometer for liquid helium, based on a micro-cantilever. Our aim was to design a probe significatively smaller than one millimeter and that can be used both above and below the superfluid transition at T_lambda~2.17 K. This sensor, including its bearing arms, is fully micro-machined using ''Deep Reactive Ion Etching'' techniques on a silicon wafer. This lets us choose the geometry of the arms to make them as little invasive as possible. The deflection of the cantilever, which reflects the local fluid velocity, is probed using a niobium superconducting LC resonator, with a critical temperature Tc~9K.

Domaines: Autre [cond-mat.other]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]

Julien Salort, Alessandro Monfardini, Philippe-Emmanuel Roche. Micro-Cantilever Anemometer for Cryogenic Helium. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2011, 318, pp.092030. ⟨10.1088/1742-6596/318/9/092030⟩. ⟨hal-00640527⟩