No Arabic abstract
In our previous work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 103602 (2009)], we found that repulsive Casimir forces could be realized by using chiral metamaterials if the chirality is strong enough. In this work, we check four different chiral metamaterial designs (i.e., Twisted-Rosettes, Twisted-Crosswires, Four-U-SRRs, and Conjugate-Swastikas) and find that the designs of Four-U-SRRs and Conjugate-Swastikas are the most promising candidates to realize repulsive Casimir force because of their large chirality and the small ratio of structure length scale to resonance wavelength.
We demonstrate theoretically that one can obtain repulsive Casimir forces and stable nanolevitations by using chiral metamaterials. By extending the Lifshitz theory to treat chiral metamaterials, we find that a repulsive force and a minimum of the interaction energy exist for strong chirality, under realistic frequency dependencies and correct limiting values (for zero and infinite frequencies) of the permittivity, permeability, and chiral coefficients.
Both theoretical interest and practical significance attach to the sign and strength of Casimir forces. A famous, discouraging no-go theorem states that The Casimir force between two bodies with reflection symmetry is always attractive. Here we identify a loophole in the reasoning, and propose a universal way to realize repulsive Casimir forces. We show that the sign and strength of Casimir forces can be adjusted by inserting optically active or gyrotropic media between bodies, and modulated by external fields.
We use the extended Lifshitz theory to study the behaviors of the Casimir forces between finite-thickness effective medium slabs. We first study the interaction between a semi-infinite Drude metal and a finite-thickness magnetic slab with or without substrate. For no substrate, the large distance $d$ dependence of the force is repulsive and goes as $1/d^5$; for the Drude metal substrate, a stable equilibrium point appears at an intermediate distance which can be tuned by the thickness of the slab. We then study the interaction between two identical chiral metamaterial slabs with and without substrate. For no substrate, the finite thickness of the slabs $D$ does not influence significantly the repulsive character of the force at short distances, while the attractive character at large distances becomes weaker and behaves as $1/d^6$; for the Drude metal substrate, the finite thickness of the slabs $D$ does not influence the repulsive force too much at short distances until $D=0.05lambda_0$.
The dependence of the Casimir force on material properties is important for both future applications and to gain further insight on its fundamental aspects. Here we derive a general theory of the Casimir force for low-conducting compounds, or poor metals. For distances in the micrometer range, a large variety of such materials is described by universal equations containing a few parameters: the effective plasma frequency, dissipation rate of the free carriers, and electric permittivity in the infrared range. This theory can also describe inhomogeneous composite materials containing small regions with different conductivity. The Casimir force for mechanical systems involving samples made with compounds that have a metal-insulator transition shows an abrupt large temperature dependence of the Casimir force within the transition region, where metallic and dielectric phases coexist.
We study the influence of stationary axisymmetric spacetimes on Casimir energy. We consider a massive scalar field and analyze its dependence on the apparatus orientation with respect to the dragging direction associated with such spaces. We show that, for an apparatus orientation not considered before in the literature, the Casimir energy can change its sign, producing a repulsive force. As applications, we analyze two specific metrics: one associated with a linear motion of a cylinder and a circular equatorial motion around a gravitational source described by Kerr geometry.