Retardation-enhanced van der Waals force between thin metal films

• We recently investigated the van der Waals force between thin metal films. Under certain conditions this force decrease with separation to a fractional power. In the present work we use optical data of metals and the zero-temperature Lifshitz formalism to demonstrate a retardation effect. The retarded attraction between thin metal films may be larger than the nonretarded attraction. This property is related to a comparatively weak retardation dependence of the energy that originates from the transverse magnetic modes. At separations where the transverse electric modes give a significant contribution, the net effect can actually be an increased attraction. This effect vanishes with increasing film thickness and with increasing dissipation.

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