Strengthening constraints on Yukawa-type corrections to Newtonian gravity from measuring the Casimir force between a cylinder and a plate

We discuss the possibility of obtaining stronger constraints on non-Newtonian gravity from measuring the gradient of the Casimir force between a cylinder and a plate. The exact analytical expression for the Yukawa-type force in a cylinder-plate configuration is obtained, as well as its asymptotic expansions. The gravitational force is compared with the Casimir force acting between a cylinder and a plate. Numerical computations for the prospective constraints on non-Newtonian gravity are performed for a recently proposed experiment using a microfabricated cylinder attached to a micromachined oscillator. Specifically, it is shown that this experiment is expected to obtain up to 70 times stronger constraints on the Yukawa-type force, compared with the best present day limits, over a wide interaction range from 12.5 to 630 nm.