The dispersive interaction induced by electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations is an attractive long-range interaction between polarizable objects. The dispersion interaction between a particle and surface can be classified into two types depending on the distance z from the surface. The van der Waals (vdW) potential is dominant where the particles are closer to the surface while the Casimir-Polder (CP) potential is dominant for particles which are farther away from the surface. Because quantum reflection occurs at this omnipresent dispersive potential, we can practically investigate both retarded and non-retarded van der Waals coefficients for any kind of atom/molecule-surface interactions.
5.2 Contribution to atomic de Broglie microscopy