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The space between two close surfaces is not emptiness, but a seething quantum glue. Within it, quantum fluctuations are continuously born and die — microscopic bursts of energy that create attractive or repulsive forces. This Casimir effect is now used to make objects levitate without support.

Researchers placed a polystyrene plate over Teflon and filled the gap with a magnetic fluid containing nanoparticles. By changing the magnetic field, they controlled how the fluid interacts with light, which directly affected the quantum pressure. The plate hovered, held only by the field. This trick works even at room temperature, although thermal jittering of particles tries to spoil everything. Scientists calculated the limit where heat prevails and overcame it. The most surprising thing: the finer the material tuning, the higher the levitation — the plate rose to tenths of a millimeter, which at these scales is comparable to a flight of several meters.

Original abstract

as written by the authors arXiv:2601.00483

We demonstrate quantum levitation controlled by Casimir forces acting between a polystyrene surface and a Teflon-coated metallic substrate immersed in a mixture of Toluene and magnetite particles. This system experiences repulsion-attraction transitions in the Casimir interaction for distances where the effect is measurable. This Casimir trapping can be controlled by clever choices of metallic and ferrofluid materials, which are directly linked to the emergence of the trapping effect. Thermal and quantum contributions are investigated in detail, showing how the optical and magnetic properties of the ferrofluid and other materials affect the magnitude of the trapping and its distance range of observability.