The Casimir effect in the nanoworld

TL;DR

This paper reviews the Casimir effect's significance in nanotechnology, focusing on how material properties and geometry influence the force, including lateral forces and torques between corrugated metal surfaces.

Contribution

It provides new evaluations of lateral Casimir forces and restoring torques between misaligned corrugated metal plates, highlighting geometric and material influences.

Findings

Material properties significantly affect the Casimir force.

Geometry, especially corrugations, alters force characteristics.

Lateral forces and torques are quantitatively analyzed.

Abstract

The Casimir effect is a force arising in the macroscopic world as a result of radiation pressure of vacuum fluctuations. It thus plays a key role in the emerging domain of nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS). This role is reviewed in the present paper, with discussions of the influence of the material properties of the mirrors, as well as the geometry dependence of the Casimir effect between corrugated mirrors. In particular, the lateral component of the Casimir force and restoring torque between metal plates with misaligned corrugations are evaluated.