EAGER: Study of Casimir Force Engineering by Modeling and Implementing Novel Three-dimensional Structures

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The objective of this program is to study the change of Casimir force, due to variation of density of vacuum fluctuation. We will develop very accurate measurement methods to dynamically evaluate the Casimir force with a high spatial and temporal resolution. The intellectual merits of the proposed work are that it can lead to new and unexplored areas of surface science, and the emerging field of Casimir force engineering. Also, experimental and theoretical work in this area is immediately applicable to technological areas such as energy storage and nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS). Finally, numerical methods developed during this effort would be published and help advance fields where surface effects are prevalent from NEMS to NanoBioMechanics. The broader impacts are through incorporation of some of the results of this research in the photonics courses and an advanced course on quantum field theory. Also, an open-source simulation tools that will be developed in this research effort will become publicly available through the literature and shared with other researchers in this field. Finally, undergraduate and graduate students from under-represented and minority groups will be encouraged to take part in this research. The PI plans to take advantage of AGEP (Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professorate) program at Northwestern University in this regard.