A small polarizable object (an atom, molecule or nanoparticle), placed above a medium with flowing dc current in it, is considered. It is shown that the dc current can have a strong effect on the force exerted on the particle. The Casimir-Lifshitz force, well studied in the absence of current, gets modified due to drifting mobile carriers in the medium. Furthermore, a force in the lateral direc...

Title of dissertation: OPTICAL AND CASIMIR EFFECTS IN TOPOLOGICAL MATERIALS Justin H. Wilson, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Dissertation directed by: Professor Victor M. Galitski Department of Physics Two major electromagnetic phenomena, magneto-optical effects and the Casimir effect, have seen much theoretical and experimental use for many years. On the other hand, recently there has been an expl...

We develop a spectral representation formalism to calculate the Casimir force, in the non-retarded limit, or van der Waals force between a spherical particle and a substrate, both with arbitrary local dielectric properties. The spectral formalism allows to study the system as a function of its geometrical properties separately from its dielectric properties. The calculated force is attractive, ...

We establish strict upper limits for the Casimir interaction between multilayered structures of arbitrary dielectric or diamagnetic materials. We discuss the appearance of different power laws due to frequency-dependent material constants. Simple analytical expressions are in good agreement with numerical calculations based on Lifshitz theory. We discuss the improvements required for current (m...

It is well known that the Casimir force between two half-spaces is dictated by their electromagnetic properties. In particular, when one of the half-spaces is mainly metallic or dielectric and the other is mainly magnetic, it is possible to show that the force is repulsive. This has attracted lots of interest towards the study of metamterials (MMs) in the context of Casimir effect, as their mag...

We explore the scattering approach to Casimir forces. Our main tool is the description of Casimir energy in terms of transition operators. The approach is valid for scalar fields as well as for electromagnetic fields. We provide several equivalent derivations of the formula presented by Kenneth and Klich Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 160401 2006 . We study the convergence properties of the formula and h...

Hypothetical interactions of Yukawaand power-types have been discussed actively in recent years (for a collection of references on this subject, see [1]). They may be considered as specific corrections to the classical gravitational force at small distances [2]. An alternative interpretation comes from the elementary particle physics. According to the unified gauge theories, supersymmetry and s...

We extend our approach to the Casimir effect between absorbing dielectric multilayers [M. S. Tomaš, Phys. Rev. A 66, 052103 (2002)] to magnetodielectric systems. The resulting expression for the force is used to numerically explore the effect of the medium dispersion on the attractive/repulsive force in a metal-magnetodielectric system described by the Drude-Lorentz permittivities and permeabil...

The new approach to the theoretical description of the thermal Casimir force between real metals is presented. It uses the plasma-like dielectric permittivity that takes into account the interband transitions of core electrons. This permittivity precisely satisfies the Kramers-Kronig relations. The respective Casimir entropy is positive and vanishes at zero temperature in accordance with the Ne...

We have analysed available optical data for Au in the mid-infrared range which is important for a precise prediction of the Casimir force. Significant variation of the data demonstrates genuine sample dependence of the dielectric function. We demonstrate that the Casimir force is largely determined by the material properties in the low frequency domain and argue that therefore the precise value...