Achieving a Strongly Temperature-Dependent Casimir Effect

We propose a method of achieving large temperature T sensitivity in the Casimir force that involves measuring the stable separation between dielectric objects immersed in a fluid. We study the Casimir force between slabs and spheres using realistic material models, and find large >2  nm/K variat...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Woolf, David, McCauley, Alexander Patrick, Capasso, Federico, Rodriguez-Wong, Alejandro, Joannopoulos, John, Johnson, Steven G
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Physical Society 2010
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/58477
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7327-4967
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7244-3682
Description
Summary:We propose a method of achieving large temperature T sensitivity in the Casimir force that involves measuring the stable separation between dielectric objects immersed in a fluid. We study the Casimir force between slabs and spheres using realistic material models, and find large >2  nm/K variations in their stable separations (hundreds of nanometers) near room temperature. In addition, we analyze the effects of Brownian motion on suspended objects, and show that the average separation is also sensitive to changes in T. Finally, this approach also leads to rich qualitative phenomena, such as irreversible transitions, from suspension to stiction, as T is varied.