Microwave ovens use oscillating electric field of microwaves to heat up the food. Consider following design of an oven, which runs on electric field, one may call it field oven. The oven is a rectangular box similar to microwave oven. However, the opening is not in the front but on the top in the form of a hole or cavity, not a door. Think of a 15 -20 cm dia of hole on top of box. the cookware sits in this hole, such that the brim of the cookware extends few cm above the top surface of the hole. material of cookware is chosen to suit the application. Front and back sides are parallel plates of a capacitor. A high frequency say few ghz or 100s of mhz of AC is applied to the capacitor plates. The required electronics is attached outside the box. Hence, in the oven (the box) high frequency AC electric field is generated. 1) Will this work for cooking the food?
Note the difference is that it uses AC electric field instead of em waves for cooking. Some em waves will be produced as by product because of AC source, it can be contained or directed.
2) Microwave ovens suffer from skin depth issues, hence the cooking happens only few cm from surface. Will this new design also suffer from skin effect?