Distance-dependent sign-reversal in the Casimir-Lifshitz torque

Abstract

The Casimir-Lifshitz torque between two biaxially polarizable anisotropic planar slabs is shown to exhibit a non-trivial sign-reversal in its rotational sense. The critical distance $a_c$ between the slabs that marks this reversal is characterized by the frequency ${\omega }_c\sim c/2a_c$ at which the in-planar polarizabilities along the two principal axes are equal. The two materials seek to align their principal axes of polarizabilities in one direction below $a_c$, while above $a_c$ their axes try to align rotated perpendicular relative to their previous minimum energy orientation. The sign-reversal disappears in the nonretarded limit. Our perturbative result, derived for the case when the differences in the relative polarizabilities are small, matches excellently with the exact theory for uniaxial materials. We illustrate our results for black phosphorus and phosphorene.

6 pages, 5 figures, accompanied by a supplementary material

References in corpus (10)

• The Nature of the Interlayer Interaction in Bulk and Few-Layer Phosphorus
• On the torque on birefringent plates induced by quantum fluctuations
• Measurement of non-monotonic Casimir forces between silicon nanostructures
• Detecting Casimir torque with an optically levitated nanorod
• Non-contact gears: II. Casimir torque between concentric corrugated cylinders for the scalar case
• Casimir torque between nanostructured plates
• Non-contact gears: I. Next-to-leading order contribution to lateral Casimir force between corrugated parallel plates
• Tailoring electronic properties of multilayer phosphorene by siliconization
• Orientation-dependent Casimir force arising from highly anisotropic crystals: application to Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta
• Van der Waals torque and force between dielectrically anisotropic layered media

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Giant Casimir torque between rotated gratings and the $\theta =0$ anomaly
• Axial Casimir Force
• Casimir-Polder force and torque for anisotropic molecules close to conducting planes and their effects on CO${}_2$
• Inducing and controlling rotation on small objects using photonic topological materials
• Geometrical dependence in Casimir-Polder repulsion
• Qualitative chirality effects on the Casimir-Lifshitz torque with liquid crystals
• Maxwell Eigenmode approach to the Casimir-Lifshitz Torque
• Role of zero point energy in promoting ice formation in a spherical drop of water
• Orientational dependence of the van der Waals interactions for finite-sized particles
• Effect of excess charge carriers and fluid medium on the magnitude and the sign of the Casimir-Lifshitz torque
• Interplay between finite thickness and chirality effects on the Casimir-Lifshitz torque with nematic cholesteric liquid crystals
• Controlling electric and magnetic Purcell effects in phosphorene via strain engineering
• Nanoscale Casimir Force Softening Originated from Quantum Surface Responses
• Anisotropic resonance energy transfer with strained phosphorene
• Competition-Induced Sign Reversal of Casimir-Lifshitz Torque: An Investigation on Topological Node-Line Semimetal
• Thermal Effects in the Casimir Torque between Birefringent Plates