Surface melting of deuterium hydride thick films

Abstract
Quasi-elastic neutron scattering has been used to measure, below the bulk melting temperature, the thickness and the diffusion coefficient of the mobile surface layer of 8 and 10 layer thick films of deuterium hydride (HD) condensed on MgO(100). The measurements show that the close-packed surface of solid HD surface melts gradually, with the thickness of the melted layer increasing from 0.5 to 6 molecular layers as the temperature rises from 4 K to 0.05 K below the bulk melting temperature. The diffusion coefficients are in the 10-5 cm2 s-1 range indicating that the surface disordered film is liquid-like

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