From:
http://www.lucent.com/press/0201/010209.bla.html

Scientists from Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs make microscopic seesaw that
moves due to spooky quantum physical force

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY FEBRUARY 09, 2001

Experiment supports 50-year-old theory and may lead to practical
applications

MURRAY HILL, N. J. -- Physicists at Lucent Technologies' (NYSE: LU) Bell
Labs have made a microscopic seesaw that moves in response to a little-known
but strong and pervasive force predicted by quantum mechanics, the
widely-accepted scientific theory that describes the behavior of atoms and
other microscopic particles.

This experiment, which will be reported in a forthcoming issue of the
journal Science, shows that esoteric physical effects are important in
designing nanoscale machines, which are 1,000 times smaller than today's
micromachines. It also suggests that such effects might be used to make
extremely sensitive sensors in the future.

The microscopic seesaw is the latest scientific advance from Bell Labs
physicists conducting research in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS),
tiny machines which are becoming crucial components in devices ranging from
complex optical switches in new data networks to actuators that deploy
airbags.

"We are using our expertise in MEMS to fashion creative experiments that
illustrate what little-known quantum effects come into play in extremely
small devices," said Federico Capasso, physical research vice president at
Bell Labs and a member of the team that produced the seesaw.

According to quantum mechanics, even empty space (vacuum) has a little
energy - known as zero-point energy - associated with it. This picture is
quite different from the classical understanding of a vacuum as completely
empty space without any energy. In the quantum description, a vacuum is
teeming with virtual photons that produce constantly oscillating
electromagnetic fields.

In 1948, Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir predicted that this zero-point
energy would produce an attractive force between uncharged parallel metallic
plates that are very close together. The bizarre "Casimir force" was first
measured precisely by physicists in 1997.

Bell Labs physicists recently realized that the Casimir force could be used
to tilt a microscopic MEMS seesaw. They built the seesaw using a tiny
metallized plate that was balanced on a hinge and kept parallel to the
surface of a silicon chip. When a gold plated sphere suspended on a wire was
brought close to the seesaw - an experimental setup similar to the two
parallel plates - the seesaw was attracted toward the sphere in agreement
with Casimir's prediction. Their results show that quantum mechanical
effects play a significant role in MEMS systems when the separation between
components is in the nanometer range (a nanometer is one-billionth of a
meter).

An article describing the experiment will be published today on Science
magazine's new Science Express Web site that can be accessed at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/express/expresstwise.shl.

(Access to the Science magazine website is a long and laborious process. To
so much as use their search engine to find this article and read only the
abstract, let alone the whole article which is only available to paid
subscribers, I had to fill reams of text windows... But here is the date of
the print issue it was later published in: Science, Vol. 291, Issue 5510,
1941-1944, March 9, 2001. Remy C.)

Other Bell Labs physicists involved in the experiment were Ho Bun Chan,
Vladimir Aksyuk, Rafael Kleiman and David Bishop.

"This experiment has opened up an entirely new sensitivity range for MEMS
devices," said Bishop, the director of Bell Labs' micromechanics research.
Bishop's team of MEMS researchers developed and recently began customer
shipments of the Lucent WaveStar TM LambdaRouter, the world's first
commercial all-optical switch capable of switching data at rates up to
terabits per second.

"In addition to making powerful optical switches with MEMS technology, we
use MEMS techniques to do heady scientific work that pushes the frontiers
and may lead to wonderful devices," Bishop said.

With 30,000 employees in 30 countries, Bell Labs is the world's largest R&D
organization dedicated to communications and the leading source of new
communications technologies. Bell Labs has generated more than 28,000
patents since 1925 and has played a pivotal role in inventing or perfecting
key communications technologies, including transistors, digital networking
and signal processing, lasers and fiber-optic communications systems,
communications satellites, cellular telephony, electronic switching of
calls, touch-tone dialing, and modems. Bell Labs scientists have received
six Nobel Prizes in Physics, nine U.S. Medals of Science and six U.S. Medals
of Technology. For more information about Bell Labs, visit its Web site at
http://www.bell-labs.com.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and
delivers the systems, software, silicon and services for next-generation
communications networks for service providers and enterprises. Backed by the
research and development of Bell Labs, Lucent focuses on high-growth areas
such as optical and wireless networks; Internet infrastructure;
communications software; communications semiconductors and optoelectronics;
Web-based enterprise solutions that link private and public networks; and
professional network design and consulting services. For more information on
Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at http://www.lucent.com.

For more information, reporters may contact:
Saswato Das
Lucent Technologies
(908) 582-4824
Email:srdas@...

Steve Eisenberg
Lucent Technologies
(908) 582-7474
Email:seisenberg@...

Copyright © 2001 Lucent Technologies. All rights reserved.

From ISI Web of Science:

Quantum mechanical actuation of microelectromechanical systems by the
Casimir force
Chan, HB
SCIENCE
291: (5510) 1941 2001

New developments in the Casimir effect
Bordag, A;Mohideen, U;Mostepanenko, VM
PHYSICS REPORTS-REVIEW SECTION OF PHYSICS LETTERS
PHYS REP 353: (1-3) 1-205 OCT 2001

Document type: Review Language: English

Abstract:
We provide a review of both new experimental and theoretical developments in
the Casimir effect. The Casimir effect results from the alteration by the
boundaries of the zero-point electromagnetic energy. Unique to the Casimir
force is its strong dependence on shape, switching from attractive to
repulsive as function of the size, geometry and topology of the boundary.
Thus, the Casimir force is a direct manifestation of the boundary dependence
of quantum vacuum. We discuss in depth the general structure of the
infinities in the field theory which are removed by a combination of
zeta-functional regularization and heat kernel expansion. Different
representations for the regularized vacuum energy are given. The Casimir
energies and forces in a number of configurations of interest to
applications are calculated. We stress the development of the Casimir force
for real media including effects of nonzero temperature, finite conductivity
of the boundary metal and surface roughness. Also, the combined effect of
these important factors is investigated in detail on the basis of condensed
matter physics and quantum field theory at nonzero temperature. The
experiments on measuring the Casimir force are also reviewed, starting first
with the older measurements and finishing with a detailed presentation of
modem precision experiments. The latter are accurately compared with the
theoretical results for real media. At the end of the review we provide the
most recent constraints on the corrections to Newtonian gravitational law
and other hypothetical long-range interactions at submillimeter range
obtained from the Casimir force measurements. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V.
All rights reserved.

Author Keywords:
vacuum, zero-point oscillations, renormalization, finite conductivity,
nonzero temperature, roughness, precision measurements, atomic force
microscope, long-range interactions

Addresses:
Mohideen U, Univ Calif Riverside, Dept Phys, Riverside, CA 92521 USA.
Univ Calif Riverside, Dept Phys, Riverside, CA 92521 USA.
Univ Leipzig, Inst Theoret Phys, D-04109 Leipzig, Germany.
Univ Fed Paraiba, Dept Phys, BR-58059970 Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil.

Publisher:
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, AMSTERDAM

TGA Number:
482MF

ISSN:
0370-1573

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