Repulsive Casimir force in chiral metamaterials

We demonstrate theoretically that one can obtain repulsive Casimir forces and stable nanolevitations by using chiral metamaterials. By extending the Lifshitz theory to treat chiral metamaterials, we find that a repulsive force and a minimum of the interaction energy possibly exist for strong chirali...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 103; no. 10; p. 103602
Main Authors Zhao, R, Zhou, J, Koschny, Th, Economou, E N, Soukoulis, C M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 04.09.2009
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Summary:We demonstrate theoretically that one can obtain repulsive Casimir forces and stable nanolevitations by using chiral metamaterials. By extending the Lifshitz theory to treat chiral metamaterials, we find that a repulsive force and a minimum of the interaction energy possibly exist for strong chirality, under realistic frequency dependencies and correct limiting values (for zero and infinite frequencies) of the permittivity, permeability, and chiral coefficients.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.103602