Normal and lateral Casimir force: Advances and prospects

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent experimental and theoretical advances in understanding and controlling the Casimir force between various materials, highlighting potential applications in nanotechnology and novel force manipulation techniques.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent progress in calculating, measuring, and controlling the Casimir force, including new experimental data and theoretical models for different materials and configurations.

Findings

Thermal Casimir force calculations align with experimental data.

Optical modulation can control Casimir force magnitude and sign.

Ferromagnetic materials can induce Casimir repulsion.

Abstract

We discuss recent experimental and theoretical results on the Casimir force between real material bodies made of different materials. Special attention is paid to calculations of the normal Casimir force acting perpendicular to the surface with the help of the Lifshitz theory taking into account the role of free charge carriers. Theoretical results for the thermal Casimir force acting between metallic, dielectric and semiconductor materials are presented and compared with available experimental data. Main attention is concentrated on the possibility to control the magnitude and sign of the Casimir force for applications in nanotechnology. In this respect we consider experiments on the optical modulation of the Casimir force between metal and semiconductor test bodies with laser light. Another option is the use of ferromagnetic materials, specifically, ferromagnetic dielectrics. Under some conditions this allows to get Casimir repulsion. The lateral Casimir force acting between sinusoidally corrugated surfaces can be considered as some kind of noncontact friction caused by zero-point oscillations of the electromagnetic field. Recent experiments and computations using the exact theory have demonstrated the role of diffraction-type effects in this phenomenon and the possibility to get asymmetric force profiles. Conclusion is made that the Casimir force may play important role in the operation of different devices on the nanoscale.