Casimir-like tunneling-induced electronic forces
Quantum Physics
2009-11-11 v1 Materials Science
Abstract
We study the quantum forces that act between two nearby conductors due to electronic tunneling. We derive an expression for these forces by calculating the flux of momentum arising from the overlap of evanescent electronic fields. Our result is written in terms of the electronic reflection amplitudes of the conductors and it has the same structure as Lifshitz's formula for the electromagnetically mediated Casimir forces. We evaluate the tunneling force between two semiinfinite conductors and between two thin films separated by an insulating gap. We discuss some applications of our results.
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0511066,
title = {Casimir-like tunneling-induced electronic forces},
author = {Lorenzo M. Procopio and Carlos Villarreal and W. Luis Mochán},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0511066},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
8 pages, 3 figs, submitted to Proc. of QFEXT'05, to be published in J. Phys. A