title: Casimir forces on a silicon micromechanical chip.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Marcet
authors.forename: A W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Rodriguez
authors.forename: M T H
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Reid
authors.forename: A P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: McCauley
authors.forename: I I
authors.initials: II
authors.lastname: Kravchenko
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bao
authors.forename: S G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: H B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Chan