Observation of Shrinkage of Silica Aerogel during Capillary Condensation of ⁴He

Abstract

Silica aerogels are highly porous and very compressible materials. They are transparent and suitable for observation of the liquefaction process in them. We reported that capillary condensation of ⁴He in a very light aerogel with a porosity of 99.5% proceeded with two steps under a nonequilibrium condition. The aerogel sucked outer liquid with two separated interfaces which were regarded as precursor films and avalanches (Nomura, R., et al. in Phys. Rev. E 73:032601, 2006). During the capillary condensation, shrinkage of the aerogel was large enough to be visually observable, shrinking about 1.5% in length by the capillary force. During the rapid evacuation at high temperatures, shrinkage was enhanced to as much as 7% and was easily seen. By repeated filling and evacuating of the liquid in the aerogel, the shrinkage became less. For denser aerogels with porosities of 95.8 and 90.4%, the shrinkage was not large enough to be observed by our method.