Ultrathin Metallic Coatings Can Induce Quantum Levitation between Nanosurfaces
arXiv:1206.0899 · doi:10.1063/1.4729822
Abstract
There is an attractive Casimir-Lifshitz force between two silica surfaces in a liquid (bromobenze or toluene). We demonstrate that adding an ultrathin (5-50Å) metallic nanocoating to one of the surfaces results in repulsive Casimir-Lifshitz forces above a critical separation. The onset of such quantum levitation comes at decreasing separations as the film thickness decreases. Remarkably the effect of retardation can turn attraction into repulsion. From that we explain how an ultrathin metallic coating may prevent nanoelectromechanical systems from crashing together.
4 pages, 5 figures
References in corpus (6)
- Measurement of the Casimir force between dissimilar metals
- Observation of the thermal Casimir force
- Measurement of the Casimir force between a gold sphere and silicon surface with nanoscale trench arrays
- Repulsive Casimir forces between solid materials with high refractive index intervening liquids
- Retardation turns the van der Waals attraction into Casimir repulsion already at 3 nm
- Repulsive and attractive Casimir interactions in liquids