Laser-wielding boffins bend lightning to their will
- Reference: 1674045126
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/01/18/laser_guided_lightning/
- Source link:
Although lab-based demos have proven the concept, an experiment conducted on the Säntis Mountain in northeastern Switzerland in late 2021 - and only detailed in Nature this week - showed it works in the wild when a high-repetition-rate terawatt laser was used to divert a lightning strike by over 50 meters.
A group led by Aurélien Houard, research engineer at ENSTA Paris, has shown over more than six hours of operation during thunderstorm activity, the laser diverted the course of four upward lightning discharges.
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"From the first lightning event using the laser, we found that the discharge could follow the beam for nearly 60 meters before reaching the tower, meaning that it increased the radius of the protection surface from 120m to 180," [2]said Professor Jean-Pierre Wolf, of the University of Geneva's Department of Applied Physics.
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"When very high-power laser pulses are emitted into the atmosphere, filaments of very intense light form inside the beam. These filaments ionize the nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air, which then release electrons that are free to move. This ionized air, called plasma, becomes an electrical conductor."
The laser was emitted in picosecond pulses at 500mJ, a wavelength of 1,030nm and a 1kHz repetition rate from the vicinity of a 124m telecommunications tower that is struck by lightning about 100 times a year.
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[6]Youtube Video
[7]Covered by Nature Photonics this week, the result was confirmed using high-frequency electromagnetic waves generated by lightning to locate the strikes. An X-ray burst at the time of the strikes also backed up the findings.
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Lightning rods were first detailed by Benjamin Franklin – US Founding Father and acclaimed polymath – who, through a series of experiments, produced a workable system around 1760. But since then the technology hasn't advanced much, and the team think the idea could be developed to protect areas at high risk from storms.
There are [12]around 1.4 billion lightning strikes across the globe every year . The total costs from damage to industry and property are [13]estimated to be between $8 billion and $10 billion annually in the US alone.
The researchers said the work could help in the study of laser physics in the atmosphere and lead to the development of new lightning protection systems.
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"Although this research field has been very active for more than 20 years, this is the first field result that experimentally demonstrates lightning guided by lasers. This work paves the way for new atmospheric applications of ultrashort lasers and represents an important step forward in the development of a laser-based lightning protection for airports, launchpads or large infrastructures," they said. ®
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[2] https://www.polytechnique.edu/en/news/deflecting-lightning-laser-lightning-rod
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[12] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/thunder-and-lightning/facts-about-lightning
[13] https://vfclp.com/articles/an-economic-case-for-facility-lightning-protection-systems-in-2017/
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[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Just a thought
I wonder if ths could be a route to harvesting lightning energy - although I've no idea what could store such huge amounts in such a short time.
Easy - A Flux Capacitor!
1.21 Gigawatts' worth.
Re: Easy - A Flux Capacitor!
I assume yours is the one with the bullet-proof vest?
Re: Easy - A Flux Capacitor!
The Libyans!
Re: Just a thought
Hopefully by modulating the laser and using, say, a grid of emitters or possibly reflective surfaces that can fire in turn, the storm energy could be pulsed more gently into an array of storage cells - maybe heating salt water or silica in underground vats. It's hopeful that the seemingly random pattern of lightning strikes could become more directed and controllable.
... and now, the scientists should record an accompanying metal album. "Guide the Lightning" would be my suggestion.
What about the other way?
I can see this working well for lightning strikes that are going earth to cloud but what about when they are traveling down from cloud to earth. Won't something get frazzled?
Re: What about the other way?
It's not massively clear from the video, but the laser beam guides the strike towards the tower (since a big metal structure has a much lower impedance than a thin ionised pathway through the air).
This protects the laser and the focusing telescope (they called it a telescope, so I will too) as the current gets diverted away from the ionised path running down to the big ol' death ray machine.
In lightning strikes, there's typically a "small" strike from cloud to earth followed milliseconds later by a "big" return stroke. All the things affected by lightning don't really care which way the electrons are running, just that there's so many of them.
Would this work with the "lightning" produced by a tesla coil, i.e. directing it from the coil to a specific point on the ground?
Now we just need to train the sharks to swim around the tower in an orderly fashion!
So correct me if my laser physics fundamentals are a bit shaky, but if it's a problem with mW continuous lasers pointed in the sky around airports and such, I have to admit that I fail to see how a TW infrared pulse laser would not be significantly bigger hazard?
As long as they aren't pointing into aircraft cockpits it shouldn't be a problem. The concern around airports is blinding/dazzling pilots more than anything else.
I wonder if a terawatt pulse would not cook the retinas of anyone in its path, even via reflection.
We may not see IR, but that doesn't stop from it from being a tad toasty to ye olde eyeball Mark I..
Cost-Effectiveness
Nice field test ("It can be done!"), but not economically-feasable, unless you're protecting a majorly -more expensive thing from lightning.
It has been said
That lightning rods on church steeples represent the triumph of science over religion.
Can we expect pretty light shows in future on steeples?