Abstract
The Casimir force originates from the quantum fluctuation of the zero point energy. Thermal effect of the Casimir force can be regarded as the result of non-zero photons due to the non-zero temperatures. Observation of the thermal effect of the Casimir force is not an easy task because of the nature of the effect. However, it is possible to observe the thermal effect of the Casimir force from graphene, benefiting from the linear dispersive property of graphene. In this dissertation, we have built up a mechanical system to do so. Because of the difficulty of measuring the Casimir force on the plane-plane geometry, we adopted the sphere-plane configuration in our system and have measured the Casimir force between a gold coated sphere and several flat graphene samples. The measurement results from graphene coated silicon oxide generally agree to the theoretical calculations, but it is hard to identify the thermal effect due to the presence of the silicon oxide. The measurement results from the suspended 5-layer graphene sample are dramatically higher than the theoretical calculations of single layer graphene, which can not be explained by the existing model.