Finite temperature Casimir effect for graphene

TL;DR

This paper calculates the finite temperature Casimir effect involving graphene, revealing that at high temperatures, graphene behaves like a Drude metal with half the interaction strength of ideal conductors, and explores intermediate temperature behaviors.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the finite temperature Casimir effect for graphene using the Dirac model, highlighting its unique electromagnetic response.

Findings

At high temperature, graphene's Casimir interaction is half that of ideal conductors.

The TE mode contribution is suppressed at high temperature.

An interplay between the fine structure constant and Fermi velocity influences the interaction.

Abstract

We adopt the Dirac model for quasiparticles in graphene and calculate the finite temperature Casimir interaction between a suspended graphene layer and a parallel conducting surface. We find that at high temperature the Casimir interaction in such system is just one half of that for two ideal conductors separated by the same distance. In this limit single graphene layer behaves exactly as a Drude metal. In particular, the contribution of the TE mode is suppressed, while one of the TM mode saturates the ideal metal value. Behaviour of the Casimir interaction for intermediate temperatures and separations accessible for an experiment is studied in some detail. We also find an interesting interplay between two fundamental constants of graphene physics: the fine structure constant and the Fermi velocity.