Effect of the heterogeneity of metamaterials on the Casimir-Lifshitz interaction

Journal Article · Wed Sep 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.82.032512· OSTI ID:21450546

Azari, Arash; Golestanian, Ramin ^[1]; Miri, MirFaez ^[2]

---

1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH (United Kingdom)
2. Department of Physics, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 14395-547, Tehran (Iran, Islamic Republic of)

The Casimir-Lifshitz interaction between metamaterials is studied using a model that takes into account the structural heterogeneity of the dielectric and magnetic properties of the bodies. A recently developed perturbation theory for the Casimir-Lifshitz interaction between arbitrary material bodies is generalized to include nonuniform magnetic permeability profiles and used to study the interaction between the magneto-dielectric heterostructures within the leading order. The metamaterials are modeled as two-dimensional arrays of domains with varying permittivity and permeability. In the case of two semi-infinite bodies with flat boundaries, the patterned structure of the material properties is found to cause the normal Casimir-Lifshitz force to develop an oscillatory behavior when the distance between the two bodies is comparable to the wavelength of the patterned features in the metamaterials. The nonuniformity also leads to the emergence of lateral Casimir-Lifshitz forces, which tend to strengthen as the gap size becomes smaller. Our results suggest that the recent studies on Casimir-Lifshitz forces between metamaterials, which have been performed with the aim of examining the possibility of observing the repulsive force, should be revisited to include the effect of the patterned structure at the wavelength of several hundred nanometers that coincides with the relevant gap size in the experiments.

• OSTI ID: 21450546
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 82, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.82.032512; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
CASIMIR EFFECT
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
DISTANCE
DOMAIN STRUCTURE
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERACTIONS
MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY
PERMITTIVITY
PERTURBATION THEORY
WAVELENGTHS
BASIC INTERACTIONS
DIELECTRIC PROPERTIES
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
INTERACTIONS
MAGNETIC PROPERTIES
MATERIALS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES