Magnetic control of quantum vacuum friction near a graphene sheet

The authors investigate here quantum vacuum friction acting on a rotating nanosphere near a graphene sheet and demonstrate that the friction force can be substantially tuned by a magnetic field. This tunability originates from the mode coupling between graphene's magnetoplasmon polaritons and the localized surface phonon polaritons in nanospheres. Interestingly, the authors reveal that the axial Casimir force---a dissipationless friction---exhibits quantized steplike features as the magnetic field and/or the chemical potential increases. This phenomenon is attributed to the quantum Hall effect of graphene at low temperatures.