• DOI:10.1038/ncomms2842
• Corpus ID: 46359798

Casimir forces on a silicon micromechanical chip

@article{Zou2012CasimirFO,
  title={Casimir forces on a silicon micromechanical chip},
  author={Jie Zou and Zsolt Marcet and A. W. Rodriguez and M. T. Homer Reid and Alexander P. McCauley and Ivan I. Kravchenko and T. Lu and Y. Bao and S. G. Johnson and Ho Bun Chan},
  journal={Nature Communications},
  year={2012},
  volume={4}
}

• J. Zou, Z. Marcet, +7 authors H. B. Chan
• Published 26 July 2012
• Physics, Engineering
• Nature Communications

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 force-sensing 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. The Casimir effect is based on quantum electrodynamical effects between two electrically neutral objects in close proximity. Here Zou et al. observe the Casimir effect between two silicon components on a single micromechanical chip, allowing for an on-chip exploitation of the Casimir force.