Radiation and Maxwell Stress Stabilization of Liquid Bridges

A unique and potentially useful fluid configuration which is possible in zero gravity is the liquid cylinder. One example is floating-zone crystal growth which, in zero gravity, involves a cylindrical melt bridging two solid cylinders. In low gravity, when the length of a cylindrical liquid bridge exceeds it's circumference, the bridge becomes unstable and breaks. A liquid bridge of length L and radius R is thus characterized by the ratio S = L/2R, where S is termed the slenderness of the bridge. The stability limit of S = _r is known as the Raylcigh-Plateau (RP) limit. For floating-zone crystal growth one might wish to have a longer liquid bridge in order to reduce the temperature gradient at the growth front since thermal stress can lead to defects in the growing crystal. A number of groups have studied stabilization methods which rely on the electrical properties of the liquid column. For example, an axial electric field has been shown to stabilize a dielectric bridge beyond the RP limit. The stabilization methods explored in this work are of a fundamentally different nature.