CASIMIR FORCE EXPERIMENTS IN AIR: TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE

We present a short overview of the recent efforts of our group in the design of high precision Casimir force setups. We first describe our Atomic Force Microscope based technique that allows one to simultaneously and continuously calibrate the instrument, compensate for a residual electrostatic potential, measure the Casimir force, and, in the presence of a fluid in the gap between the interacting surfaces, measure the hydrodynamic force. Then we briefly discuss a new force sensor that adapts well to Casimir force measurements in critical environments.