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# Van der Waals torque and force between anisotropic topological insulator slabs

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### Abstract

We investigate the character of the van der Waals (vdW) torque and force between two coplanar and dielectrically anisotropic topological insulator (TI) slabs separated by a vacuum gap in the non-retardation regime, where the optic axes of the slabs are each perpendicular to the normal direction to the slab-gap interface and also generally differently oriented from each other. We find that for sufficiently small anisotropy and/or large magnetoelectric polarizability, the vdW force can become repulsive, and in addition, the force oscillates as a function of the angular difference between the optic axes of the TI slabs, being most repulsive/least attractive (least repulsive/most attractive) for angular differences that are integer (half-integer) multiples of $$\pi$$. Furthermore, we have found that the vdW torque for TI slabs is generally weaker than that for ordinary dielectric slabs. Our work provides the first instance in which the vector potential appears in a calculation of the vdW interaction for which the limit is non-retarded or static.

### Most cited references20

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In topological insulators, spin-orbit coupling and time-reversal symmetry combine to form a novel state of matter predicted to have exotic physical properties.
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### Author and article information

###### Journal
21 September 2017
###### Article
1709.07583