My husband put a large metal bowl in our new microwave oven and tore a small hole in the oven’s metal screen while trying to close the door. My husband isn’t concerned, but the oven is mounted over the stove at face level and it certainly concerns me. Can we use it? — E, Ontario, Canada
That tear in the window screen presents three potential problems: microwave leakage, evanescent waves, and arcing. As long as the hole is small, less than a centimeter or so, it’s not likely to allow much microwave leakage. The oven’s microwaves have a wavelength of 12.4 centimeters and they’ll reflect from conducting surfaces with holes much smaller than that wavelength. A foot from your oven, there probably won’t be any significant microwave intensity, although the only way to be sure is with a microwave leakage meter.
The evanescent wave problem is more likely. When any electromagnetic wave reflects from a conducting surface that has small holes in it, there is what is known as an evanescent wave extending into and somewhat beyond each hole. It’s as though the wave is trying to figure out whether or not it can pass through the opening and so it tries. Even when it discovers that the hole is far too small for it pass through (i.e., much smaller than its wavelength), it still offers electromagnetic intensity in the region just beyond the hole. The extent of the evanescent wave increases with the size of the hole. The microwave oven’s screen has very small holes and it is located inside the glass window. The evanescent waves associated with those holes cut off so quickly that you can hold your hand against the glass and not expose your skin to significant microwaves. But once you’ve torn a larger hole in the screen, the evanescent waves can extend farther through that screen and perhaps out beyond the surface of the glass window. If you press your hand against the window just in front of the tear while the microwave oven is on, you may burn your hand.
Finally, there is the issue of arcing. To reflect the microwaves, the conducting screen must carry electric currents. The microwaves’ electric fields push electric charge back and forth in the conducting screen and it is that moving charge (i.e., electric current) that ultimately redirects the microwaves back into the cooking chamber as a reflection. Those electric currents in the screen are real and they’re not going to take kindly to that tear. It’s a weak spot in the conducting surface through which they flow. Weak electrical paths can heat up like lightbulb filaments when they carry currents. Moreover, charge that should flow across the torn region can accumulate on sharp edges and leap through the air as an arc. If either of these processes happens, it may scorch the window and the screen, and cause increasing trouble.
You could be lucky: the leakage could be zero, the evanescent waves could remain far enough inside the window to never cause injury, and the tear could never heat up or arc. But the risk of operating this damaged microwave oven is not insignificant. Since it’s an installed unit, I’d suggest replacing the screen or the door. There are a number of websites that sell replacement parts for microwave ovens and I have used them to replace the door on our microwave oven.