The Casimir force: background, experiments, and applications

The Casimir force, which is the attraction of two uncharged material bodies due to modification of the zero-point energy associated with the electromagnetic modes in the space between them, has been measured with per cent-level accuracy in a number of recent experiments. A review of the theory of the Casimir force and its corrections for real materials and finite temperature are presented in this report. Applications of the theory to a number of practical problems are discussed.