Reduction of the Casimir force using aerogels

Abstract

By using silicon oxide based aerogels we show numerically that the Casimir force can be reduced several orders of magnitude, making its effect negligible in nanodevices. This decrease in the Casimir force is also present even when the aerogels are deposited on metallic substrates. To calculate the Casimir force we model the dielectric function of silicon oxide aerogels using an effective medium dielectric function such as the Clausius-Mossotti approximation. The results show that both the porosity of the aerogel and its thickness can be use as control parameters to reduce the magnitude of the Casimir force.

to appear J. Appl. Phys

References in corpus (3)

• Demonstration of the difference Casimir force for samples with different charge carrier densities
• Experimental test for the conductivity properties from the Casimir force between metal and semiconductor
• Sample dependence of the Casimir forces

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Casimir force calculations near the insulator-conductor transition in gold thin films