Resonant photon tunneling enhancement of the van der Waals friction

TL;DR

This paper investigates how resonant photon tunneling can significantly enhance van der Waals friction between metal surfaces, especially when surface modes like plasmons or adsorbates are involved, revealing conditions for large friction increases.

Contribution

It introduces the concept that resonant photon tunneling via surface modes can greatly amplify van der Waals friction between conducting surfaces.

Findings

Normal relative motion produces larger friction than parallel motion.

Adsorbates or surface plasmons can increase friction by several orders of magnitude.

Resonant photon tunneling between vibrational or plasmon modes is key to this enhancement.

Abstract

We study the van der Waals friction between two flat metal surfaces in relative motion. For good conductors we find that normal relative motion gives a much larger friction than for parallel relative motion. The friction may increase by many order of magnitude when the surfaces are covered by adsorbates, or can support low-frequency surface plasmons. In this case the friction is determined by resonant photon tunneling between adsorbate vibrational modes, or surface plasmon modes.