Measurements of the Casimir-Lifshitz force in fluids: the effect of electrostatic forces and Debye screening

Abstract

In this work, we present detailed measurements of the Casimir-Lifshitz force between two gold surfaces (a sphere and a plate) immersed in ethanol and study the effect of residual electrostatic forces, which are dominated by static fields within the apparatus and can be reduced with proper shielding. Electrostatic forces are further reduced by Debye screening through the addition of salt ions to the liquid. Additionally, the salt leads to a reduction of the Casimir-Lifshitz force by screening the zero-frequency contribution to the force; however, the effect is small between gold surfaces at the measured separations and within experimental error. An improved calibration procedure is described and compared to previous methods. Finally, the experimental results are compared to Lifshitz's theory and found to be consistent for the materials used in the experiment.

11 figures. PRA in press

References in corpus (7)

• Optical properties of gold films and the Casimir force
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• Precision measurement of the Casimir-Lifshitz force in a fluid
• Sample dependence of the Casimir forces
• Casimir energy and entropy between dissipative mirrors
• Reply to "Comment on 'Precision measurement of the Casimir-Lifshitz force in a fluid'"
• Comment on ``Precision measurement of the Casimir-Lifshitz force in a fluid''

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