Anomalies in electrostatic calibrations for the measurement of the Casimir force in a sphere-plane geometry

Kim, W. J.; Brown-Hayes, Michael; Dalvit, Diego A. R.; Brownell, J. H.; Onofrio, Roberto

doi:10.1103/physreva.78.020101

Cited by 140 publications

(168 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Figure 2c shows that V 0 is measured to be about À 25 mV at small d. Over the full range of distances, V 0 changes by about 15 mV, comparable to previous experiments in the lens-plate 23 and sphere-plate 24 geometries. Even though both the beam and the electrode are made of single-crystal silicon on the same wafer, the residual voltage V 0 is non-zero and shows distance dependence.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 68%

Casimir forces on a silicon micromechanical chip

et al. 2013

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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 challenge because all experiments so far require an external object to be manually positioned close to the mechanical element. Here by integrating a forcesensing micromechanical beam and an electrostatic actuator on a single chip, we demonstrate the Casimir effect between two micromachined silicon components on the same substrate. A high degree of parallelism between the two near-planar interacting surfaces can be achieved because they are defined in a single lithographic step. Apart from providing a compact platform for Casimir force measurements, this scheme also opens the possibility of tailoring the Casimir force using lithographically defined components of non-conventional shapes.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 68%

Casimir forces on a silicon micromechanical chip

et al. 2013

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“…In the last few years calibration of the Casimir force measurement setup has attracted considerable interest and even become controversial. [45][46][47][48]52 It was claimed that anomalous dependences of the residual potential difference and separation on contact on the separation distance observed in several experiments cast doubts on the measurements of the Casimir force performed to date. It was also suggested that inasmuch electrostatic calibrations are based on a fitting procedure there is no principal difference detween independent measurements of the Casimir force [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][35][36][37][39][40][41][42][43][44]71 and deriving the Casimir force by means of a fit from some much larger measured force of hypothetical origin.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such dependences were found in several experiments measuring the Casimir force and widely discussed in the literature. [45][46][47][48]52 They are often interpreted as a manifectation of an additional electric force due to the presence of electrostatic surface impurities and space charge effects on the sphere or plate surfaces. In our case, however, these seeming anomalies do not indicate the presence of some extra electric force other than that given by Eqs.…”

Section: Electrostatic Calibrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They allow determination with sufficient precision of values of such vital parameters as the residual potential difference V 0 , the separation on contact z 0 , the spring constant k, and the cantilever deflection coefficient m. During calibration process it is necessary to make sure that all relevant electric forces acting in the experimental configuration are included in the theoretical model used, and all possible background forces are negligibly small (see, for instance, a discussion [45][46][47][48] on the role of patch potentials which may exist due to the grain structure of metal coatings, surface contaminants etc. ).…”

Section: Electrostatic Calibrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modifying the Casimir force between indium tin oxide film and Au sphere

et al. 2012

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We present complete results of the experiment on measuring the Casimir force between an Aucoated sphere and an untreated or, alternatively, UV-treated indium tin oxide film deposited on a quartz substrate. Measurements were performed using an atomic force microscope in a high vacuum chamber. The measurement system was calibrated electrostatically. Special analysis of the systematic deviations is performed, and respective corrections in the calibration parameters are introduced. The corrected parameters are free from anomalies discussed in the literature. The experimental data for the Casimir force from two measurement sets for both untreated and UVtreated samples are presented. The random, systematic and total experimental errors are determined at a 95% confidence level. It is demonstrated that the UV treatment of an ITO plate results in a significant decrease in the magnitude of the Casimir force (from 21% to 35% depending on separation). However, ellipsometry measurements of the imaginary parts of dielectric permittivities of the untreated and UV-treated samples did not reveal any significant differences. The experimental data are compared with computations in the framework of the Lifshitz theory. It is found that the data for the untreated sample are in a very good agreement with theoretical results taking into account the free charge carriers in an ITO film. For the UV-treated sample the data exclude the theoretical results obtained with account of free charge carriers. These data are in a very good agreement with computations disregarding the contribution of free carriers in the dielectric permittivity. According to the hypothetical explanation provided, this is caused by the phase transition of the ITO film from metallic to dielectric state caused by the UV-treatment. Possible applications of the discovered phenomenon in nanotechnology are discussed.

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“…[15][16][17] It was shown 18 that anomalous behavior of the electrostatic force can be explained due to deviations of the mechanically polished and ground surfaces of centimeter-size lenses from a perfect spherical form. The point is that the typical surface of a centimeter-size lens is characterized in terms of scratch and dig optical surface specification data.…”

Section: Anomalies In Electrostatic Calibrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is Credible and What Is Incredible in the Measurements of the Casimir Force

Mostepanenko

2011

Int. J. Mod. Phys. Conf. Ser.

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We comment on progress in measurements of the Casimir force and discuss what is the actual reliability of different experiments. In this connection a more rigorous approach to the usage of such concepts as accuracy, precision, and measure of agreement between experiment and theory, is presented. We demonstrate that all measurements of the Casimir force employing spherical lenses with centimeter-size curvature radii are fundamentally flawed due to the presence of bubbles and pits on their surfaces. The commonly used formulation of the proximity force approximation is shown to be inapplicable for centimeter-size lenses. New expressions for the Casimir force are derived taking into account surface imperfections. Uncontrollable deviations of the Casimir force from the values predicted using the assumption of perfect sphericity vary by a few tens of percent within the separation region from 1 to 3 µm. This makes impractical further use of centimeter-size lenses in experiments on measuring the Casimir force.

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Anomalies in electrostatic calibrations for the measurement of the Casimir force in a sphere-plane geometry

Cited by 140 publications

References 26 publications

Casimir forces on a silicon micromechanical chip

Casimir forces on a silicon micromechanical chip

Modifying the Casimir force between indium tin oxide film and Au sphere

What Is Credible and What Is Incredible in the Measurements of the Casimir Force

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