Casimir Force in QED
Thoery
"On
the attraction between two perfectly conducting plates,"
H.B.G.
Casimir, Proc. K. Ned. Akad. Wet. 51,
793 (1948)
Quantum fluctuations
of electromagnetic field in the vacuum between leads to an attractive force between perfect mirrors
"The
Theory of Molecular Attractive Forces Between Solids,"
E.M.
Lifshitz, Soviet Physics 2,
73 (1956),
Generalizes the result by considering fluctuating current sources in the bodies.
Experiment
Early experiments
provided at best qualitative support for an attractive force:
Deriagin & Abrikosova (1956) [Silica lenses]; Sparnaay (1958) [Aluminum
plates H~1-100
nm]
Israilachvili & Tabor (1972) [mica H>1µm]; von Blokland & Overbeek (1978) [H~1-100 nm]
The era of
high precision tests:
"Demonstration
of the Casimir Force in the 0.6 to 6µm Range," (using
a torsion pendulum)
S.K. Lamoreaux, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 78, 5 (1997)
"Precision Measurements of
the Casimir Force from 0.1 to 0.9µm," (using atomic force
microscopy)
U. Mohideen and A. Roy, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 4549 (1998) (offline)
Other groups [Ederth; Bressi, Carugno, Onofrio & Ruoso; Decca,
Lopez, Fischbach & Krause; ...]
Applications
Important in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS): micron-scale metallic machines
"The role of the casimir effect
in the static deflection and stiction of membrane strips in MEMS,"
F.
Michael Serry, Dirk Walliser, and G. Jordan Maclay, J. Appl. Phys. 84,
2501 (1998)
"Stiction, adhesion energy, and
the Casimir effect in micromechanical systems,"
E.
Buks and M. L. Roukes, Phys. Rev. B 63,
033402 (2001)
"Quantum Mechanical Actuation
of Microelectromechanical Systems by the Casimir Force,"
H.
B. Chan, V. A. Aksyuk, R. N. Kleiman, D. J. Bishop, Federico Capasso, Science 291,
1941 (2001)
