Experimental and theoretical investigation of the lateral Casimir force between corrugated surfaces

The lateral Casimir force acting between a sinusoidally corrugated gold plate and sphere was calculated and measured. The experimental setup was based on the atomic force microscope specially adapted for the measurement of the lateral Casimir force. The measured force oscillates sinusoidally as a function of the phase difference between the two corrugations. Both systematic and random errors are analyzed and a lateral force amplitude of 3.2×10^-13N was measured at a separation distance of 221 nm with a resulting relative error 24% at a 95% confidence probability. The dependence of the measured lateral force amplitude on separation was investigated and shown to be consistent with the inverse fourth power distance dependence. The complete theory of the lateral Casimir force is presented including finite conductivity and roughness corrections. The obtained theoretical dependence was analyzed as a function of surface separation, corrugation amplitudes, phase difference, and plasma wavelength of a metal. The theory was compared with the experimental data and shown to be in good agreement. The constraints on hypothetical Yukawa-type interactions following from the measurements of the lateral Casimir force are calculated. The possible applications of the lateral vacuum forces to nanotechnology are discussed.