In this paper, the finite temperature Casimir force acting on a
two-dimensional Casimir piston due to electromagnetic field is computed. It was
found that if mixed boundary conditions are assumed on the piston and its
opposite wall, then the Casimir force always tends to restore the piston
towards the equilibrium position, regardless of the boundary conditions assumed
on the walls transverse to the piston. In contrary, if pure boundary conditions
are assumed on the piston and the opposite wall, then the Casimir force always
tend to pull the piston towards the closer wall and away from the equilibrium
position. The nature of the force is not affected by temperature. However, in
the high temperature regime, the magnitude of the Casimir force grows linearly
with respect to temperature. This shows that the Casimir effect has a classical
limit as has been observed in other literatures.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Journal of Physics