A multilayered effective medium model for the roughness effect on the Casimir force

Abstract

A multilayered effective medium model is proposed to calculate the contribution of surface roughness to the Casimir force. In this model the rough layer has its optical properties derived from an effective medium approximation, with the rough layer considered as the mixing of voids and solid material. The rough layer can be divided into sublayers consisting of different volume fractions of voids and solid material as a function of the roughness surface profile. The Casimir force is then calculated using the generalizations of the Lifshitz theory for multilayered planar systems. Predictions of the Casimir force based on the proposed model are compared with those of well-known methods of calculation, usually restricted to be used with large-scale roughness. It is concluded that the effect of short-scale roughness as predicted by this model is considerably larger than what could be expected from the extrapolation of the results obtained by the other methods.