Measurements of the Casimir Force Between Metals

AbstractThis chapter starts chronologically with the first measurement, by means of a torsion pendulum, in the recent phase of Casimir force experiments. Then the main breakthroughs in the measurement of the Casimir force between metallic surfaces are presented. One of them was the first demonstration of corrections to the Casimir force due to the nonzero skin depth and surface roughness by means of an atomic force microscope. Another breakthrough was a series of precise indirect measurements of the Casimir pressure by means of a micromechanical torsional oscillator. These measurements allowed a definitive choice between different theoretical approaches to the thermal Casimir force for real metal surfaces. Many other experiments performed in the last few years are also presented, specifically one measurement using the configuration of two parallel plates. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of proposed experiments using metallic surfaces.