Research On The Casimir Effect Between Anisotropic Materials

Casimir effect caused by boundary alternation of the zero-point electromagnetic energy is one of the most remarkable predictions of quantum theory. It is a macroscopic quantum effect, and plays an important role in variety of fields of physics and nanotechnology application.Casimir effect can be considered as a boundary problem of electromagnetic field. Lifshitz's general theory of Casimir force is restricted to isotropic and non-magnetic material. New physical phenomena can arise if nontrivial magnetic properties and material dispersion are involved.The quantized surface mode technique is used to calculate the Casimir force between two parallel anisotropic metamaterial plates with frequency dependent permittivity and permeability. The main concern is focused on the possible attractive-repulsive transition of the force. The result shows that the Casimir force between them is attractive when the separation is very small and is able to become repulsive as the separation increases. The parameters of the metamaterial can affect both the magnitude and the polarity of Casimir force. Moreover, the polarity of the Casimir force also depends on the degree of anisotropy. All these effects are caused by the contribution of both nontrivial magnetic properties and material dispersion, and describe the competition between permittivity and permeability.We also calculate the Casimir torque between two parallel anisotropic metamaterial plates, focusing on the exact impact of nontrivial magnetic properties on Casimir torque. The result shows the Casimir torque verifies with the angle between two optical axes of the plates with a period ofπ. And the torque is to make the two optical axes parallel. At small separation the impact of nontrivial magnetic properties of the plates "helps" to make the two optical axes parallel, while at large separation it is to "prevent" them to be parallel. This is also caused by the contribution of both nontrivial magnetic properties and material dispersion.