Chiral Casimir forces: Repulsive, enhanced, tunable

Both theoretical interest and practical significance attach to the sign and strength of Casimir forces. A famous, discouraging no-go theorem states that “the Casimir force between two bodies with reflection symmetry is always attractive.” Here, we identify a promising way to avoid the assumptions of the no-go theorem, and propose a universal way to realize repulsive Casimir forces. We show that the sign and strength of Casimir forces can be adjusted by inserting optically active or gyrotropic media between bodies, and modulated by external fields.Swedish Research Council (Contract 335-2014-7424)United States. Department of Energy (Grant DE-SC0012567)European Research Council (Grant 742104