Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: Kelvin probe force microscopy at normal pressure was performed by two different groups on the same Au-coated planar sample used to measure the Casimir interaction in a sphere-plane geometry. The obtained voltage distribution was used to calculate the separation dependence of the electrostatic pressure ${P}_{\mathrm{res}}(D)$ in the configuration of the Casimir experiments. In the calculation it was assumed that the potential distribution in the sphere has the same statistical properties as the measured one, and that there are no correlation effects on the potential distributions due to the presence of the other surface. The result of this calculation, using the currently available knowledge, is that ${P}_{\mathrm{res}}(D)$ does not explain the magnitude or the separation dependence of the difference $\ensuremath{\Delta}P(D)$ between the measured Casimir pressure and the one calculated using a Drude model for the electromagnetic response of Au. We discuss in the conclusions the points which have to be checked out by future work, including the influence of pressure and a more accurate determination of the patch distribution, in order to confirm these results.
Source: Physical Review A
Institutions: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Yale University, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires, Université de Strasbourg, Argonne National Laboratory, Center for Nanoscale Materials, Collège de France, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, École Normale Supérieure - PSL, Institute of Organic Synthesis and Photoreactivity, Observatoire de Paris, Laboratoire Univers et Théories, Université Paris Diderot
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Award: G102163711
OpenAlex ID: W2009199669