Abstract
Dispersion forces are long-range interactions between polarizable objects that arise from fluctuations in the electromagnetic field between them. Dispersion forces have been observed between microscopic objects such as atoms and molecules (the van der Waals interaction)1, between macroscopic objects (the Casimir interaction)2 and between an atom and a macroscopic object (the Casimir–Polder interaction)2,3. Dispersion forces are known to increase the attractive forces between the components in nanomechanical devices4, to influence adsorption rates onto nanostructures5, and to influence the interactions between biomolecules in biological systems1. In recent years, there has been growing interest in studying dispersion forces in nanoscale systems6,7,8 and in exploring the interactions between carbon nanotubes and cold atoms9,10,11. However, there are considerable difficulties in developing dispersion force theories for general, finite geometries such as nanostructures. Thus, there is a need for new experimental methods that are able to go beyond measurements of planar surfaces12,13,14,15 and nanoscale gratings16 and make measurements on isolated nanostructures. Here, we measure the dispersion force between a rubidium atom and a multiwalled carbon nanotube by inserting the nanotube into a cloud of ultracold rubidium atoms and monitoring the loss of atoms from the cloud as a function of time. We perform these experiments with both thermal clouds of ultracold atoms and with Bose–Einstein condensates. The results obtained with this approach will aid the development of theories describing quantum fields near nanostructures, and hybrid cold-atom/solid-state devices may also prove useful for applications in quantum sensing and quantum information17,18.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank B. Jetter and J. Märkle for supporting the Hamaker calculations and R. Walser, M. Schneider, H. Friedrich, M. Fink, J. Eiglsperger and J. Madroñero for helpful discussions. The authors acknowledge financial support from the BMBF (NanoFutur 03X5506) and the DFG (SFB TRR21, projects C9 and C10). A.G. and T.E.J. acknowledge financial support from the Baden-Württemberg RiSC programme, P.S. from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, and M.G. from the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst. The authors also acknowledge the use of BW-grid computing resources and support from the BW Stiftung ‘Kompetenznetz Funktionelle Nanostrukturen’.
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A.G. and J.F. contributed to the experimental idea and supervised the project. P.S., M.G., A.G. and J.F. designed and set up the experiment. G.V. and D.K. fabricated the nanochip. P.S. and M.G. performed the experiments. P.S., M.G., T.E.J., A.G. and J.F. analysed the data and discussed the results.
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Schneeweiss, P., Gierling, M., Visanescu, G. et al. Dispersion forces between ultracold atoms and a carbon nanotube. Nature Nanotech 7, 515–519 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2012.93
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2012.93
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