Repulsive Casimir Force between Dielectric Planes

The Casimir force between two parallel thick plates, one perfectly dielectric, the other purely magnetic, has been calculated long ago by Boyer [T. H. Boyer, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 9}, 2078 (1974)]. Its most characteristic property is that it is repulsive. The problem is actually delicate and counterintuitive, since it implies, for instance, that in the boundary layer of the electric plate the square $E^2$ of the electric field becomes a negative quantity. In the present paper we ...

We investigate the thermal Casimir force between two parallel plates made of different isotropic materials which are separated by a uniaxial anisotropic film. Numerical computations of the Casimir pressure at T=300K are performed using the complete Lifshitz formula adapted for an anisotropic intervening layer and in the nonrelativistic limit. It is shown that the standard (nonrelativistic) theory of the van der Waals force is not applicable in this case, because the effects o...

The physical origin of the negative thermal correction to the Casimir force between metals is clarified. For this purpose the asymptotic behavior of the thermal Casimir force is analyzed at large and small distances in the real frequency representation. Contributions from propagating and evanescent waves are considered separately. At large distances they cancel each other in substantial degree so that only the attractive Lifshitz limit survives. At smaller separations the rep...

The frequency spectrum of the Casimir force between two plates separated by vacuum as it appears in the Lifshitz formalism is reexamined and generalised as compared to previous works to allow for imperfectly reflecting plates. As previously reported by Ford [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{48} (1993) 2962], the highly oscillatory nature of the frequency dependence of the Casimir force points to possibilities for very large and indeed negative Casimir forces if the frequency-dependent di...

According to the experimentally observed theory of the static Casimir effect, two metal, uncharged, conductive and flat plates attract each other in vacuum >.Herein, equations of motion of the plates which are influenced by Casimir potential are derived. Then some guess about experimental configurations that would provide possibility of observation of consequences of the derived results, are presented. As a result, frontiers of static and dynamic Casimir effects are somehow e...

We investigate the Casimir force between two dissimilar plane mirrors the material properties of which are described by Drude or Lorentz models. We calculate analytically the short and long distance asymptote of the force and relate its behavior to the influence of interacting surface plasmons. In particular we discuss conditions under which Casimir repulsion could be achieved.

The Casimir effect, which predicts the emergence of an attractive force between two parallel, highly reflecting plates in vacuum, plays a vital role in various fields of physics, from quantum field theory and cosmology to nanophotonics and condensed matter physics. Nevertheless, Casimir forces still lack an intuitive explanation and current derivations rely on regularisation procedures to remove infinities. Starting from special relativity and treating space and time coordina...

We establish strict upper limits for the Casimir interaction between multilayered structures of arbitrary dielectric or diamagnetic materials. We discuss the appearance of different power laws due to frequency-dependent material constants. Simple analytical expressions are in good agreement with numerical calculations based on Lifshitz theory. We discuss the improvements required for current (meta) materials to achieve a repulsive Casimir force.

We investigate the Casimir effect in the systems that consist of parallel but misaligned finite-size plates from the point of view of zero-point energy. We elaborate the zero-point energies of the radiation field in the perfect conductor systems would generate a tangential Casimir force, and explore the properties and consequences of this tangential force in various conductor systems. Thereafter, we generalize our discussion to dielectrics. After calculating the total zero-po...

The Casimir force between two objects is notoriously difficult to calculate in anything other than parallel-plate geometries due to its non-additive nature. This means that for more complicated, realistic geometries one usually has to resort to approaches such as making the crude proximity force approximation (PFA). Another issue with calculation of Casimir forces in real-world situations (such as with realistic materials) is that there are continuing doubts about the status ...