(American Physical Society (APS), 2012) Drews, Aaron M.; Cademartiri, Ludovico; Chemama, Michael; Brenner, Michael; Whitesides, George; Bishop, Kyle J. M.
We show that time-oscillating electric fields applied to plasmas present in flames create steady flows of gas. Ions generated within the flame move in the field and migrate a distance δ before recombining; the net flow of ions away from the flame creates a time-averaged force that drives the steady flows observed experimentally. A quantitative model describes the response of the flame and reveals how δ decreases as the frequency of the applied field increases. Interestingly, above a critical frequency, ac fields can be used to manipulate flames at a distance without the need for proximal electrodes.
