Van der Waals energy of an atom in the proximity of thin metal films

The van der Waals energy of a ground-state atom (or molecule) placed between two metal films is calculated at finite temperature. The attraction between thin metal films and a polarizable object can have half-integer separation dependence. This is in contrast to the usual integer separation dependence, shown for instance in the attraction between an atom and a solid surface. We examine how film thickness, retardation, and temperature influence the interaction. To illustrate the effect of finite thickness of the metal film we calculated the van der Waals energy of ground-state hydrogen and helium atoms, and hydrogen molecules, between thin silver films. We finally, briefly, discuss the possibility to measure this effect.