Conclusion and Outlook

In the present thesis, we have introduced our home-built multi-cantilever vacuum system. We use the multi-cantilever systems to measure the Casimir effect and study the energy transfer by quantum vacuum fluctuations. In this chapter, we will introduce several topics that can possibly be studied by our Casimir vacuum system in the near future. We will first introduce our preliminary design of a Casimir microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometer by utilizing the strong nonlinearity of the Casimir force and parametric amplification scheme. The simulated signal under an external acceleration will be presented to demonstrate the sensitivity of the Casimir MEMS accelerometer. Next, we will investigate on switching the Casimir force between a vanadium oxide (VO \({ }_2\) ) surface and a gold surface. VO \({ }_2\) has a metal–insulator transition temperature at 340 K that is accessible in the experiment. The transition from insulator to metal can generate an abrupt Casimir force increment at the transition temperature. The calculation of the Casimir effect between VO \({ }_2\) and gold will be presented. In the last part of this chapter, we will discuss a few possible schemes to engineer the repulsive Casimir force in vacuum that has never been observed yet.