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Fundamental optics

On-chip Casimir effect

Nature Photonics volume 11, pages 73–74 (2017)Cite this article

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Measurement of the forces that arise from quantum vacuum fluctuations between closely spaced surfaces typically requires large apparatus, making applications difficult. Now, an experiment on a silicon chip to measure the Casimir force has been realized.

Nearly 70 years ago, Casimir1 pointed out that fluctuations in the electromagnetic field, or changes in the zero-point energy, would result in an attractive force between two neutral, parallel, conducting plates. It was clear that the phenomenon was not restricted to conductors, and the theory was soon generalized to planar, parallel, dielectric slabs by Lifshitz and collaborators2. The resulting theory generalizes the van der Waals forces into the regime where the finite speed of light plays a significant role. Direct measurements of the Casimir force between metallic surfaces (between a planar surface and a spherical surface) were not obtained until nearly the end of the twentieth century3, following an improvement in experimental technique. Typically, the force is attractive and monotonic; the force between parallel metal plates varies inversely with the distance between the plates to the fourth power.

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Figure 1: Structure used for demonstrating non-monotonic Casimir effect.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kimball A. Milton is at the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, 440 West Brooks, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA,

    Kimball A. Milton

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  1. Kimball A. Milton
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Correspondence to Kimball A. Milton.

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Milton, K. On-chip Casimir effect. Nature Photon 11, 73–74 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.277

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