CASIMIR EFFECT

Quantum and thermal fluctuations give rise to the Casimir force. My research has focused on the Casimir force between real materials where we have tackled problems involving the role of non locality, tuning of Casimir forces using external magnetic fields, Casimir effect in liquid metals and recently the role of strong electronic correlation in the Casimir energy. Van der Waals forces in self assembly have also been a topic of our work.

We are also interested in near field radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale and its modulation using metamaterials. The Casimir effect and the near field heat transfer have the same basis: Rytov's theory of fluctuating fields. In particular I am working on near field radiative heat transfer and heat transport at the nanoscale.