A Liquid Film Motor

Abstract

It is well known that electro-hydrodynamical effects in freely suspended liquid films can flow the liquid. Here we report a purely electrically driven rotation in water and some other liquid suspended films with full control on the velocity and the chirality of the rotating vortices. The device, which is called ``film motor'', consists of a quasi two-dimensional electrolysis cell in an external in-plane electric field, crossing the mean electrolysis current density. If either the external field or the electrolysis voltage exceeds some threshold (while the other one is not zero), the liquid film begins to rotate. The device works perfectly with both DC and AC fields.