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Lasers in Eng., Vol. 16, pp. 173180 Reprints available directly from the publisher Photocopying permitted by license only

c 2006 Old City Publishing, Inc. Published by license under the OCP Science imprint, a member of the Old City Publishing Group

Klein-Gordon Thermal Equation with Casimir Potential for Ultra-Short Laser Pulses
Janina Marciak-Kozowska1 , Mirosaw Kozowski1 and Magdalena Pelc2
Institute of Electron Technology, Al. Lotnik w 32/46, Warsaw Poland o E-mail: MiroslawKozlowski@aster.pl 2 Science Teachers College, Warsaw University, Smyczkowa 5/7, Warsaw Poland
1

In this paper the thermal Klein-Gordon equation (K-GE) is solved for the interaction of attosecond laser pulses with a medium in which the Casimir force operates. It is shown that for nanoscale structures, NEMS and MEMS, the attosecond laser pulses can be used as a tool for the investigation of the role played by Casimir forces on a nanoscale.
Keywords: Casimir force; NEMS (Nano Electro Mechanical Systems), MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems), attosecond laser pulses

1 INTRODUCTION In contemporary nanoelectronics NEMS and MEMS structures develop in which the distance between the parts is of the order of nanometers. As was shown in the monograph From quarks to bulk matter (8), the transport phenomena on a nanoscale depends on the second derivative with time. This is in contrast to macroscopic heat transport where the Fourier law can describe the behaviour (only the rst derivative with time). The second derivative with time in nanoscale transport describes the memory of a thermally excited medium. Considering the contemporary discussion on the role played by the Casimir force in the NEMS and MEMS we describe, in this paper, heat signaling in a simple nanostructure of parallel plates heated by attosecond laser pulses. It is shown that the temperature eld between plates depends on the distance of the plates (on a nanoscale). Thus, an attosecond laser pulse can be used as a tool to investigate the inuence of the Casimir effect on the performance of NEMS and MEMS.

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2 REPULSIVE QUANTUM VACUUM FORCES Vacuum energy is a consequence of the quantum nature of the electromagnetic eld, which is composed of photons. A photon of frequency has an energy h, where h is Planck constant. The quantum vacuum can be interpreted as the lowest energy state (or ground state) of the electromagnetic (EM) eld which results when all charges and currents have been removed and the temperature has been reduced to absolute zero. In this state no ordinary photons are present. Nevertheless, because the electromagnetic eld is a quantum system the energy of the ground state of the EM is not zero. Although the average value of the electric eld E vanishes in the ground state, the Root Mean Square of the eld E 2 is not zero. Similarly B 2 is not zero. Therefore the electromagnetic eld energy, E 2 + B 2 is not equal to zero. A detailed theoretical calculation tells that EM energy in each mode of oscillation with frequency is 0.5 h, which equals one half of the amount of energy that would be present if a single real photon of that mode were present. Adding 0.5 h for each of the possible states of the electromagnetic eld results in a very large number for the vacuum energy E0 in a quantum vacuum 1E0 = (1) hi . 2 i The resulting vacuum energy E0 is innity unless a high frequency cut off is applied. Inserting surfaces into the vacuum causes the states of the EM eld to change. This change in the states takes place because the EM eld must meet the appropriate boundary conditions at each surface. The surfaces alter the modes of oscillation and therefore alter the energy density of the lowest state of the EM eld. In actual practice the change in E0 is: E0 = E0 ES , (2) where E0 is the energy in empty space and ES is the energy in space with the surfaces, i.e. 1 2
empty space

E0 =

1 hn 2

surface present

hi .
i

(3)

As an example consider a hollow conducting rectangular cavity with sides a1 , a2 , a3 . In this case for uncharged parallel plates with an area A the attractive force between the plates is, [1]: 2hc Fatt = A, (4) 240d 4 where d is the distance between plates. The force Fatt is called the parallel

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plate Casimir force, which was measured in three different experiments [2, 3, 4]. Recent calculations show that for conductive rectangular cavities the vacuum forces on a given face can be repulsive (positive), attractive (negative) or zero depending on the ratio of the sides [5]. The rst measurement of repulsive Casimir force was performed by Mackay [6]. For a distance of separation of d 0.1 m the repulsive force is of the order of 0.5 N (micronewton) for cavity geometry. In March 2001, a scientist at Lucent Technology used the attractive parallel plate Casimir force to actuate a MEMS torsion device [4]. Other MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) have been also proposed [7]. 3 KLEIN-GORDON THERMAL EQUATION WITH CASIMIR FORCE The standard Klein-Gordon equation is expessed as: 1 2 2 m2 c 2 + -2 = 0. (5) c2 t 2 x 2 h In equation (1) is the relativistic wave function for a particle with a mass m, c is the speed of light and h is Planck constant. In the case of massless particles, m = 0 and Eq. (1) is the Maxwell equation for photons. As was shown by Pauli and Weisskopf, the Klein-Gordon equation describes the spin, 0 bosons, because the relativistic quantum mechanical equation had to allow for the creation and anihilation of particles. In the monograph by J. Marciak-Kozowska and M. Kozowski) [8] the generalized Klein-Gordon thermal equation was developed 1 2T m T 2V m 2T + (6) + - 2 = 0. v 2 t 2 h t h In Eq. (6) T denotes the temperature of the medium and v is the velocity of the temperature signal in the medium. When we extract the highly oscillating part of the temperature eld, T = e 2 u(x, t),
t

(7)

where = 1 , and is the relaxation time, we obtain from Eq. (3) (1D case) 1 2u 2u 2 + qu(x, t) = 0, x v 2 t 2 where mv 2 2V m . (9) q = -2 h 2h When q > 0 equation (4) is of the form of the Klein-Gordon equation in (8)

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FIGURE 1 The thermal wave and parallel plates.

the potential eld V (x, t). For q < 0 Eq. (8) is the modied Klein-Gordon equation. The discussion of the physical properties of the solution of equation (4) can be found in [8]. In the paper we will study the heat signaling in the medium excited by ultra-short laser pulses, t < . In that case the solution of Eq. (1) can be approximated as T (x, t) u(x, t) = for t . (10)
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Considering the existence of the attosecond laser with t 1 as = 10 s, Eq. (8) describes the heat signaling for thermal energy transport induced by ultra-short laser pulses. In the subsequent we will consider the heat transport when V is the Casimir potential. As was shown in paper [6] the Casimir force, formula (4), can be repulsive sign (V ) = +1 and attractive sign (V ) = 1. For attractive Casimir force, V < 0, q < 0 (formula (5)) and equation (4) is the modied K-G equation. For repulsive Casimir force V > 0 and q can be positive or negative. As was shown by J. Maclay [6] for different shapes of cavities, the vacuum Casimir force can change sign. Below we consider the propagation of a thermal wave within parallel plates, Figure 1. Figure 2(a) shows the value of the parameter q as a function of d , the distance between the plates, and v , the ratio of the v, thermal wave velocity and c, the speed of c light. Since v 102 c, from Figure 2(b) it is concluded that q changes sign at d = 0.759 nm. For the Cauchy initial condition: u(x, 0) = 0, u(x, 0) = f (x) t

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(a) q[d,v/c]

5000 q[nm^-1] 0 -5000 -10000 0.2 0.4 0.6 d[nm] 0.8 1 Fig. 2b

0.08 0.06 0 0.02

FIGURE 2 (a) The q parameter as a function of d and v/c, (b) The q parameter as a function of d, for v = 102 c.

the solution of Eq. (8) has the form

x+vt

1 u(x, t) = 2v

f (x)J0
xvt

q(v 2 t 2 (x )2 ) d

for q > 0

(11)

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FIGURE 3 (a) Solution of equation (8) for d = 0.759 nm, q = 0. (b) Solution of equation MK-GE (8) for d = 0.759 nm, q = 0.

and 1 u(x, t) = 2v
x+vt

f (x)I0
xvt

q(v 2 t 2 (x )2 ) d

for q < 0.

(12)

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FIGURE 4 (a) Solution of equation K-GE (8) for d = 0.720, q > 0. (b) Solution of equation MK-GE (8) for d = 0.760, q < 0.

We then chose, as the initial temperature distribution f (x), viz. f (x) = Exp[x 2 ]. Figure 3(a, b) shows the solution of equation (8) for q = 0. Figure 3(a) u(x, t) = T (x, t) is calculated as the solution of the modied K-G. Both solutions have the same shape due to the fact that q = 0. Figure 4(a, b)

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shows the solution of K-GE and MK-G equation i.e., for q > 0 and q < 0 for different values of q. 4 CONCLUSION In this paper the solution of K-G and MK-G for ultra-short laser pulses are presented. It is shown that for attosecond laser pulses the passage of thermal wave through cavity where Casimir potential operates strongly depends on distance between parallel plates. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Brown, L. and Maclay, J. (1969). Phys. Rev., 184, 1272. Lamoroux, S. (1997). Phys. Rev. Lett., 78, 5. Mohidem, U. et al. (1998). Phys. Rev. Lett., 81, 4549. Chan, H. B. et al. (2001). Science, 291, 1941. Maclay, J. (2000). Phys. Rev., A61, 052110. Maclay, J. et al., AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE, AIAA-2001-3359. Serry, M. et al. (1995). J. Microelectromechanical System, 4, 193, Kozowski, M. and Marciak-Kozowska, J. (2001). From quarks to bulk matter, Hadronic Press, USA.