Random artificially perturbed liquid apparatus and method

DETAILED DESCRIPTION What is claimed is: 1.
An electrostatic fluid jet applicator of the type which utilizes random artificial perturbation of the fluid and including structure for producing such random perturbation which comprises: an electrically driven transducer coupled to said fluid; a source of randomly varying signals; and a frequency-stabilized oscillator connected so as to be frequency modulated by said randomly varying signals and to provide a corresponding randomly varying output connected to drive said transducer.
2.
An electrostatic fluid jet applicator as in claim 1 wherein said source of randomly varying signals comprises: a band-limited source of controlled amplitude noise signals.
3.
An electrostatic fluid jet applicator as in claim 2 wherein said band-limited source comprises: a reverse-biased diode having noise signals thereacross; a high-gain bandpass amplifier connected to amplify said noise signals; an active low-pass filter (LPF) connected to receive the amplified noise signals from said amplifier and to supply LPF noise signals; and a variable and controllable attenuator connected to receive said LPF noise signals and to supply said randomly varying signals at a controlled amplitude.
4.
An electrostatic fluid jet applicator as in claim 3 wherein said variable and controllable attenuator comprises: a digital-to-analog converter having a reference input connected to receive said LPF noise signals.
5.
An electrostatic fluid jet applicator as in claim 1 wherein said frequency-stabilized oscillator comprises: a PLL oscillator having a phase detector for comparing the phase of a supplied frequency stable reference signal with that of a feedback signal, a VCO controlled by the phase detector to produce an output PLL signal, a programmable counter for dividing the frequency of the output PLL signal and supplying the feedback signal, and a low-pass loop filter connected between the phase-detector and VCO and connected to receive said randomly varying signals.
6.
An electrostatic fluid jet applicator as in claim 1 further comprising: a post-scaler frequency divider connected to receive the output of the frequency-modulated frequency-stabilized oscillator and to provide a lower divided frequency signal for use in driving the transducer