Enhanced van der Waals interaction at interfaces

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the van der Waals interaction between two atoms near an interface can be significantly enhanced through resonant coupling with surface polariton modes, leading to potential applications in controlling atomic interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework showing how surface polariton modes can amplify atom-atom interactions near interfaces, extending previous models to include excited-ground state atom pairs.

Findings

Interaction energy can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude near interfaces.

Resonant coupling with surface polaritons is key to the enhancement.

The effect is significant in nonretarded regimes.

Abstract

Using a recently obtained (general) formula for the interaction energy between an excited and a ground-state atom (Sherkunov Y 2007 Phys. Rev. A 75 012705), we consider the interaction energy between two such atoms near the interface between two media. We demonstrate that under the circumstances of the resonant coupling of the excited atom to the surface polariton mode of a vacuum-medium system the nonretarded atom*-atom interaction energy can be enhanced by (several) orders of magnitude in comparison with the van der Waals interaction energy of the two isolated atoms.