Abstract

It is well-known and widely accepted that zero-point fluctuations affect the physics on both microscopic and macroscopic scales, upon creating forces between materials. The Casimir effect - the attractive force between two macroscopic metallic plates - and physically equivalent to the Lifshitz effect when it comes to dielectric media - is undoubtedly the most famous effect. Also the 1/r⁶ Van der Waals force and its retarded 1/r⁷ equivalent, the Casimir-Polder force, between microscopic polarizable atoms can be understood as direct manifestations of zero-point energy [1].

© 2007 Optical Society of America