Abstract

The Casimir force refers to the attraction between
electrically neutral conductors that arises
due to quantum fluctuations. Typically Casimir forces
are negligible at the micrometer scale. Nevertheless,
they increase rapidly with decreasing distance, reaching
a pressure of one atmosphere at separations of
~ 10 nm. As micromachined components continues to
become smaller and more closely-packed, such quantum
effects could start to play a role. For example,
the Casimir force can initiate the pull-in of components,
resulting in stiction. As a result, there have been a
number of efforts aiming to reverse the sign of the
Casimir force to make it repulsive. I will describe
experiments that demonstrated the Casimir force in
micromechanical devices and discuss the effects of
the optical properties of the material and the shape
of the components on the force.