M. Razavy et al., SIZE DEPENDENCE OF FORCE BETWEEN PARALLEL PLANAR JELLIUM METAL-SURFACES AT SMALL SEPARATION, Physical review. B, Condensed matter, 54(7), 1996, pp. 4492-4495
In earlier work, the jellium model has been employed, within the linea
rized Thomas-Fermi (TF) approximation to calculate the force between t
wo parallel planar conducting cylinders of infinite extension at small
separation d. Such a theory has validity in the high density limit an
d leads to the result F = Ad, where A is proportional to r(s)(-11/2),
with r(s) the mean interelectronic spacing. Here the same model is emp
loyed for two semi-finite conduction cylinders of equal radius R. A co
mplete solution is presented for the electrostatic potential V, exact
for all separations d within the TF model employed and numerical resul
ts are presented for a range of values of d and R. Finally for finite
d, the energy stored in the electrostatic field is studied. The consta
nt A turns out to be size independent. Size effects enter the present
model beyond the linear d regime of the force. It would be of interest
if the size-dependence prediction thereby made could be rested using
the atomic force microscope.