  We show how the image method can be used together with a recent method
developed by C. Eberlein and R. Zietal to obtain the dispersive van der Waals
interaction between an atom and a perfectly conducting surface of arbitrary
shape. We discuss in detail the case of an atom and a semi- infinite conducting
plane. In order to employ the above procedure to this problem it is necessary
to use the ingenious image method introduced by Sommerfeld more than one
century ago, which is a generalization of the standard procedure. Finally, we
briefly discuss other interesting situations that can also be treated by the
joint use of Sommerfeld's image technique and Eberlein-Zietal method.
