The Casimir effect could become huge with specially designed metamaterials, say Chinese physicists, Technology Review Physics arXiv Blog reports.

A “Rindler space” can be designed to allow only certain wavelengths to operate, they suggest. If the electromagnetic properties are matched to the ambient temperature, these kinds of thermal waves can be made to dominate the Casimir energy.

That makes the Casimir energy huge. Zhao and Miao calculate that in a lab at 300K (room temperature), the Casimir energy would be some 100 billion times bigger than in ordinary empty space.

Zhao and Miao also say that this kind of material would be easily implemented in the laboratory, layer by layer, with metamaterials.

Ref: Tian-Ming Zhao, and Rong-Xin Miao, Huge Casimir Effect At Finite Temperature In Electromagnetic Rindler Space, arxiv.org/abs/1110.1919

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