Trigger Lightning Or Deviate It Using Lasers - Oh Yes!

Laser Lights have fascinated engineers for long. And now, using them as lightning rods is something that French Researchers have dwelled into. This fantastic discovery about deviating lightning came to light after their paper appeared in American Institute of Physics journal AIP Advances. The paper talks about how Laser's femtosecond filaments have the ability to not only trigger & guide a lightning but also to deviate an electric discharge from it's destined path.

This team of French Researchers presented through this study about how lasers could harness & tame the power of lightning. Err.. Not literally, mind you. So, what they did is a laser beam was passed over a spherical electrode towards an oppositely charged flat electrode. The laser removed the outer electrons off the atoms in its path. Thus, the pathway between the electrodes got ionized and created a plasma filament. And lo! They got an electrical discharge from the flat electrode to the spherical one.


Integrated picture of the discharge and measurements of the voltage and current in the case of an unguided discharge (a,b) and laser guided discharge (c,d).

Going further, the researchers put a long, pointed electrode in their experiment. And what they found out was awesome. The lightning struck at the first thing that came in its way following the path of minimum resistance. While in a natural thunderstorm, as we all know, lightning strikes the tallest tower. Interestingly, with a laser filament guiding it, the electrical discharge hits the spherical electrode. What's more, the team was able to achieve this feat after the lightning was well on its way.

Via: #-Link-Snipped-# | Source: #-Link-Snipped-#