Casimir effect is the attractive force which acts between two plane parallel, closely spaced, uncharged, metallic plates in vacuum. This phenomenon was predicted theoretically in 1948 and reliably investigated experimentally only in recent years. In fact, the Casimir force is similar to the familiar van der Waals force in the case of relatively large separations when the relativistic effects co...

We show the influence of surface plasmons on the Casimir effect between two plane parallel metallic mirrors at arbitrary distances. Using the plasma model to describe the optical response of the metal, we express the Casimir energy as a sum of contributions associated with evanescent surface plasmon modes and propagative cavity modes. In contrast to naive expectations, the plasmonic mode contri...

The natural frequency and pull-in instability of clamped-clamped nano-actuators in the presence of a dielectric layer are analyzed. The influence of the presence of Casimir force, electrostatic force, fringing field effect, axial force, stretching effects and the size effect are taken into account. The governing equation of the dynamic response of the actuator is transformed in a non-dimensiona...

In this paper we study the role of surface plasmon modes in the Casimir effect. First we write the Casimir energy as a sum over the modes of a real cavity. We may identify two sorts of modes, two evanescent surface plasmon modes and propagative modes. As one of the surface plasmon modes becomes propagative for some choice of parameters we adopt an adiabatic mode definition where we follow this ...

The possibility to modify the strength of the Casimir effect by tailoring the dielectric functions of the interacting surfaces is regarded as a unique opportunity in the development of micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems. In air, however, one expects that, unless noble metals are used, the electrostatic force arising from trapped charges overcomes the Casimir attraction, leaving no room fo...

In this talk I review various developments in the past year concerning quantum vacuum energy, the Casimir effect. In particular, there has been continuing controversy surrounding the temperature correction to the Lifshitz formula for the Casimir force between real materials, be they metals or semiconductors. Consensus has emerged as to how Casimir energy accelerates in a weak gravitational fiel...

Quantum fluctuations give rise to van der Waals and Casimir forces that dominate the interaction between electrically neutral objects at sub-micron separations. Under the trend of miniaturization, such quantum electrodynamical effects are expected to play an important role in micro- and nano-mechanical devices. Nevertheless, utilization of Casimir forces on the chip level remains a major challe...