Modulation of Casimir Force between Graphene-Covered Hyperbolic Materials

Abstract

A flexible method for modulating the Casimir force is proposed by combining graphene and hyperbolic materials (HMs). The proposed structure employs two candidates other than graphene. One is hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), a natural HM. The other is porous silicon carbide (SiC), which can be treated as an artificial HM by the effective medium theory. The Casimir force between graphene-covered hBN (porous SiC) bulks is presented at zero temperature. The results show that covering HM with graphene increases the Casimir force monotonically. Furthermore, the force can be modulated by varying the Fermi level, especially at large separation distances. The reflection coefficients are thoroughly investigated, and the enhancement is attributed to the interaction of surface plasmons (SPs) supported by graphene and hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) supported by HMs. Moreover, the Casimir force can be controlled by the filling factor of porous SiC. The Casimir force can thus be modulated flexibly by designing desired artificial HMs and tuning the Fermi level. The proposed models have promising applications in practical detection and technological fields.