Kelvin probe force microscopy of metallic surfaces used in Casimir force measurements

R. O. Behunin, D. A. R. Dalvit, R. S. Decca, C. Genet, I. W. Jung, A. Lambrecht, A. Liscio, D. López, S. Reynaud, G. Schnoering, G. Voisin, and Y. Zeng
Phys. Rev. A 90, 062115 – Published 11 December 2014

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 Pres(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 Pres(D) does not explain the magnitude or the separation dependence of the difference ΔP(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.

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  • Received 14 July 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.90.062115

©2014 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

R. O. Behunin1, D. A. R. Dalvit2, R. S. Decca3, C. Genet4, I. W. Jung5, A. Lambrecht6, A. Liscio7, D. López5, S. Reynaud6, G. Schnoering4, G. Voisin3,8, and Y. Zeng2,*

  • 1Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA
  • 2Theoretical Division, MS B213, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202, USA
  • 4ISIS & icFRC, Université de Strasbourg and CNRS, 8 allée Monge, 67000 Strasbourg, France
  • 5Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 6Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, UPMC-Sorbonne Universités, CNRS, ENS-PSL Research University, Collège de France, Campus Jussieu, F-75252 Paris, France
  • 7ISOF-CNR, via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
  • 8Laboratoire Univers et Théories (LUTH), Observatoire de Paris, CNRS UMR8102, Université Paris Diderot, 5 Place Jules Janssen, 92190 Meudon, France

  • *Present address: Halliburton Energy Services, Houston, Texas 77032, USA.

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Issue

Vol. 90, Iss. 6 — December 2014

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