Calculation of the Casimir Force between Similar and Dissimilar Metal Plates at Finite Temperature

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...

We have measured the normalized gradient of the Casimir force between Au-coated surfaces of the sphere and the plate and equivalent Casimir pressure between two parallel Au plates at T=77K. These measurements have been performed by means of dynamic force microscope adapted for operating at low temperatures in the frequency shift technique. It was shown that the measurement results at T=77K are in a very good agreement with those at T=300K and with computations at T=77K using ...

We report an improved dynamic determination of the Casimir pressure between two plane plates obtained using a micromachined torsional oscillator. The main improvements in the current experiment are a significant suppression of the surface roughness of the Au layers deposited on the interacting surfaces, and a decrease in the experimental error in the measurement of the absolute separation. A metrological analysis of all data permitted us to determine both the random and syste...

The Casimir free energy and pressure of thin metal films deposited on metallic plates are considered using the Lifshitz theory and the Drude and plasma model approaches to the role of conduction electrons. The bound electrons are taken into account by using the complete optical data of film and plate metals. It is shown that for films of several tens of nanometers thickness the Casimir free energy and pressure calculated using these approaches differ by hundreds and thousands...

Quantum theory predicts the existence of the Casimir force between macroscopic bodies, due to the zero-point energy of electromagnetic field modes around them. This quantum fluctuation-induced force has been experimentally observed for metallic and semiconducting bodies, although the measurements to date have been unable to clearly settle the question of the correct low-frequency form of the dielectric constant dispersion (the Drude model or the plasma model) to be used for c...

The Casimir effect between metal surfaces has now been well-verified at the few-percent level experimentally. However, the temperature dependence has never been observed in the laboratory, since all experiments are conducted at room temperature. The temperature dependence for the related Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a bulk material has, in contrast, been observed between a BEC and a silica substrate, with the environment and the silica held at different temperatur...

We discuss the limitations of the applicability of the Lifshitz formula to describe the temperature dependence of the Casimir force between two bulk lossy metals. These limitations follow from the finite sizes of the interacting bodies. Namely, Lifshitz's theory is not applicable when the characteristic wavelengths of the fluctuating fields, responsible for the temperature-dependent terms in the Casimir force, is longer than the sizes of the samples. As a result of this, the ...

We examine the Casimir free energy and pressure of magnetic metal films, which are free-standing in vacuum, sandwiched between two dielectric plates, and deposited on either nonmagnetic or magnetic metallic plates. All calculations are performed using both the Drude and plasma model approaches to the Lifshitz theory. According to our results, the Casimir free energies and pressures calculated using both theoretical approaches are significantly different in the magnitude and s...

We compare theoretical expectations for the Casimir force with the results of precise measurements. The force is calculated at finite temperature for multilayered covering of the bodies using the Lifshitz theory. We argue that the dielectric function of the metallization has to be directly measured to reach the necessary precision in the force calculation. Without knowledge of this function one can establish a well defined upper limit on the force using parameters of perfect ...

We have performed a precise experimental determination of the Casimir pressure between two gold-coated parallel plates by means of a micromachined oscillator. In contrast to all previous experiments on the Casimir effect, where a small relative error (varying from 1% to 15%) was achieved only at the shortest separation, our smallest experimental error ($\sim 0.5$%) is achieved over a wide separation range from 170 nm to 300 nm at 95% confidence. We have formulated a rigorous ...