Implications of the Babinet Principle for Casimir Interactions

Abstract

We formulate the Babinet Principle (BP) as a relation between the scattering amplitudes for electromagnetic waves, and combine it with multiple scattering techniques to derive new properties of Casimir forces. We show that the Casimir force exerted by a planar conductor or dielectric on a self- complementary perforated planar mirror is approximately half that on a uniform mirror independent of the distance between them. The BP suggests that Casimir edge effects are anomalously small, supporting results obtained earlier in special cases. Finally, we illustrate how the BP can be used to estimate Casimir forces between perforated planar mirrors.