Casimir Repulsion between Metallic Objects in Vacuum

Levin, Michael; McCauley, Alexander P.; Rodríguez, Alejandro W.; Reid, M. T. Homer; Johnson, Steven G.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.105.090403

Cited by 164 publications

(177 citation statements)

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“…Other studies discussing the transition between attractive and repulsive interactions are found in Refs. [16][17][18][19].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Other studies discussing the transition between attractive and repulsive interactions are found in Refs. [16][17][18][19].Surfaces of interest in biology and biotechnology may involve alkane molecules creating an oil-water interface. In this Brief Report we will demonstrate that the Casimir-Polder interaction between dissolved atoms and different oil-water * mabos@ifm.liu.se † Drew.Parsons@anu.edu.au ‡ bos@ifm.liu.se interfaces may be either repulsive or attractive, or as we will see for some of the alkanes, it may change from repulsion to attraction as the distance to the interface increases.…”

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Sign of the Casimir-Polder interaction between atoms and oil-water interfaces: Subtle dependence on dielectric properties

et al. 2012

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We demonstrate that Casimir-Polder energies between noble gas atoms (dissolved in water) and oil-water interfaces are highly surface specific. Both repulsion (e.g., hexane) and attraction (e.g., glycerine and cyclodecane) is found with different oils. For several intermediate oils (e.g., hexadecane, decane, and cyclohexane) both attraction and repulsion can be found in the same system. Near these oil-water interfaces the interaction is repulsive in the nonretarded limit and turns attractive at larger distances as retardation becomes important. These highly surface specific interactions may have a role to play in biological systems where the surface may be more or less accessible to dissolved atoms. The Casimir-Polder interaction [1] between polarizable particles and a wall has received intense attention in recent decades. The theoretical framework for this interaction was worked out a long time ago [1][2][3][4][5], yet it remains a topic of great interest due to its many applications in biological, chemical, and atomic systems. For reviews, cf., e.g., [6][7][8].An interesting aspect of the Casimir-Lifshitz and CasimirPolder forces is that according to theories these forces can either be attractive or repulsive. Anderson and Sabiski performed experiments on films of liquid helium on calcium fluorite, and similar molecularly smooth surfaces [9]. The film thicknesses ranged from 10 to 200Å [9]. In these measurements the repulsive van der Waals potential opposed the gravitational potential [9]. A good agreement was found [10] between experimental data and Lifshitz theory [3]. In a set of experiments that inspired the present work, Hauxwell and Ottewill [11] measured the thickness of films of oil on water near the alkane saturated vapor pressure, an asymmetric system (oil-water-air) in which the surfaces are molecularly smooth. For this system n-alkanes up to octane spread on water. Higher alkanes do not spread. The phenomenon depends on a balance of van der Waals forces against the vapor pressure [11,12]. The net force, as a function of film thickness, depends on the dielectric properties of the oils [13]. As demonstrated [12] it involves an intricate balance of repulsive and attractive components from different frequency regimes. When the ultraviolet components are exponentially damped by retardation, the opposing (repulsive) infrared and visible components take over [14,15]. Other studies discussing the transition between attractive and repulsive interactions are found in Refs. [16][17][18][19].Surfaces of interest in biology and biotechnology may involve alkane molecules creating an oil-water interface. In this Brief Report we will demonstrate that the Casimir-Polder interaction between dissolved atoms and different oil-water * mabos@ifm.liu.se † Drew.Parsons@anu.edu.au ‡ bos@ifm.liu.se interfaces may be either repulsive or attractive, or as we will see for some of the alkanes, it may change from repulsion to attraction as the distance to the interface increases. The relevant geometry is sketched in Fig. 1. The n...

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“…Other studies discussing the transition between attractive and repulsive interactions are found in Refs. [16][17][18][19].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sign of the Casimir-Polder interaction between atoms and oil-water interfaces: Subtle dependence on dielectric properties

et al. 2012

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“…The problem may be resolved if the Casimir force is repulsive [8,12]. Therefore, repulsive Casimir force received unprecedented attention in practical systems [13,14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Casimir Force in Anisotropic Materials With Ac Kerr Effect

Zhang¹,

Huang²,

Wu³

2014

PIER M

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Abstract-The Casimir force between an ellipsoid and a plate can be tuned by using the combination of anisotropic materials and nonlinear materials exhibiting the AC Kerr effect. The force was obtained numerically by using the FDTD method, based on the Maxwell's stress tensor. The results indicate that the force can be significantly varied by changing the intensity and location of the laser, as well as the properties of material. The sensitive changing between ellipsoid and plate structure with different materials' properties provides new possibilities of integrating optical devices into nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS).

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“…While the conditions for when the Casimir force becomes repulsive are not yet fully understood, several proposals for setups which should yield repulsive Casimir forces have been made. These include setups with conditions of high magnetic permeability [7,8], optical setups involving left-handed metamaterials [9], or non-trivial boundary conditions [10]. Examples of repulsive Casimir forces have been experimentally observed only in recent years [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Casimir forces on atoms in optical cavities

2014

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Casimir-type forces, such as those between two neutral conducting plates, or between a sphere, atom or molecule and a plate have been widely studied and are becoming of increasing significance, for example, in nanotechnology. A key challenge is to better understand, from a fundamental microscopic approach, why the Casimir force is in some circumstances attractive and in others repulsive. Here, we study the Casimir-Polder forces experienced by small quantum systems such as atoms or molecules in an optical cavity. In order to make the problem more tractable, we work in a 1+1 dimensional setting, we take into account only the ground state and first excited state of the atom and we model the electromagnetic field as a scalar field with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions. This allows us to determine the conditions for the Casimir force to be attractive or repulsive for individual atoms, namely through the interplay of paramagnetic and diamagnetic vacuum effects. We also study the microscopic-macroscopic transition, finding that as the number of atoms in the cavity is increased, the atoms start to affect the Casimir force exerted on the cavity walls similarly to a dielectric medium.

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Casimir Repulsion between Metallic Objects in Vacuum

Cited by 164 publications

References 26 publications

Sign of the Casimir-Polder interaction between atoms and oil-water interfaces: Subtle dependence on dielectric properties

Sign of the Casimir-Polder interaction between atoms and oil-water interfaces: Subtle dependence on dielectric properties

Casimir Force in Anisotropic Materials With Ac Kerr Effect

Casimir forces on atoms in optical cavities

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