By counteracting gravity, the repulsive Casimir force enables stable levitation of a perfectly conducting particle near a liquid-air interface if the particle exists inside the liquid. In the present study, we examine the levitation of a gold particle near a bromobenzene-air interface and calculate the levitation height using the scattering-matrix formulation. In addition, we consider the Casimir force acting on a gold sphere near the interface between bromobenzene and water. At asymptotically large separations, the Casimir force is attractive because of the large static dielectric permittivity of water. However, the Casimir force changes from attractive to repulsive as the separation decreases. We also found that the gold particle can be levitated in bromobenzene above water.

• Received 26 March 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.89.062506