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Phys. Rev. A 85, 010701(R) (2012) [4 pages]

Retardation turns the van der Waals attraction into a Casimir repulsion as close as 3 nm

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Mathias Boström and Bo E. Sernelius*
Division of Theory and Modeling, Department of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden

Iver Brevik
Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway

Barry W. Ninham
Department of Applied Mathematics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Received 21 October 2011; published 10 January 2012

Casimir forces between surfaces immersed in bromobenzene have recently been measured by Munday et al. [ Nature (London) 454 07610 (2009)]. Attractive Casimir forces were found between gold surfaces. The forces were repulsive between gold and silica surfaces. We show the repulsion is due to retardation effects. The van der Waals interaction is attractive at all separations. The retardation-driven repulsion sets in at around 3 nm. To our knowledge, retardation effects have never been found at such a small distance before. Retardation effects are usually associated with large distances.

©2012 American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.85.010701
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.85.010701
PACS:
42.50.Lc, 34.20.Cf, 03.70.+k

*bos@ifm.liu.se

 
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