Influence of water adsorbed on gold on van der Waals/Casimir forces
arXiv:0906.1381 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.79.235434
Abstract
In this paper we investigate the influence of ultra thin water layer (1-1.5 nm) on the van der Waals/Casimir force between gold surfaces. Adsorbed water is inevitably present on gold surfaces at ambient conditions as jump-up-to contact during adhesion experiments demonstrate. Calculations based on the Lifshitz theory give very good agreement with the experiment in absence of any water layer for surface separations d>10 nm. However, a layer of thickness h<1.5 nm is allowed by the error margin in force measurements. At shorter separations, d<10 nm, the water layer can have a strong influence as calculations show for flat surfaces. Nonetheless, in reality the influence of surface roughness must also be considered, and it can overshadow any water layer influence at separations comparable to the total sphere-plate rms roughness w_{shp}+w.
8 pages, 5 figure, to be published in Phys. Rev. B
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- Characterization of optical properties and surface roughness profiles: The Casimir force between real materials
- Variations of the Lifshitz-van der Waals force between metals immersed in liquids