Via Medium.com/@TimVentura: Engineering the Quantum Vacuum: 47 Casimir Devices and Concepts by Tim Ventura
From vacuum batteries and spacecraft propulsion, researchers are learning how to engineering fluctuation-induced forces.
Can an interaction across an apparently empty gap become the working part of a machine? Casimir research has moved beyond measuring tiny attractions to controlling mechanical motion, assembling optical structures, and generating quantum-correlated radiation with external drives. Its more ambitious proposals reach toward vacuum-energy power cells and spacecraft propulsion. These 47 devices and concepts map that landscape — from measured laboratory effects to designs that remain theoretical or disputed — and reveal why understanding what powers a device is just as important as understanding the force it uses.