The Van der Waals interaction between metals

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Abstract
The nonretarded Van der Waals energy, EVdW, between two metal slabs is calculated using the random phase approximation and an infinite potential barrier at each surface. It is shown that EVdW comes from the change in surface plasmon zero point energy, and making use of this, asymptotic results are obtained which show when the Lifschitz results (1956) become valid. With an electron density corresponding to Al, EVdW at the smallest separation compatible with the infinite barrier model is -260 erg cm-2, much less than the Lifschitz value and 1/10 of the surface exchange-correlation energy. However, by a separation of 10 au, EVdW is within 10% of the Lifschitz result.