Influence of Particle Geometry on Dispersion Forces

Dispersion forces (van der Waals force and Casimir force) originating from quantum fluctuations are crucial in the cohesion of microscale and nanoscale particles. The nonadditivity of these forces and the complex geometry of realistic particles make conventional additive algorithms produce unacceptable errors, and it is experimentally challenging to identify the contribution of dispersion forces from the many forces that constitute the cohesion. In this study, we use the fluctuating surface current technique, an exact scattering theory-based nonadditive algorithm, to accurately quantify the influence of geometry on dispersion forces. To characterize the complex geometries, we employ a data-adaptive spatial filtering method and three-level descriptors. Our results determine the influence of multiscale surface fluctuations on dispersion forces. Additionally, we establish a convenient formula for predicting the dispersion forces between realistic particles with complex shapes from the exact Lifshitz solution via multistage corrections.