Laser-guided lightning

Laser-guided lightning

Nature Photonics

10.1038/s41566-022-01139-z

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-01139-z

Aurélien Houard, Pierre Walch, Thomas Produit, Victor Moreno, Benoit Mahieu, Antonio Sunjerga, Clemens Herkommer, Amirhossein Mostajabi, Ugo Andral, Yves-Bernard André, Magali Lozano, Laurent Bizet, Malte C. Schroeder, Guillaume Schimmel, Michel Moret, Mark Stanley, W. A. Rison, Oliver Maurice, Bruno Esmiller, Knut Michel, Walter Haas, Thomas Metzger, Marcos Rubinstein, Farhad Rachidi, Vernon Cooray, André Mysyrowicz, Jérôme Kasparian, Jean-Pierre Wolf

Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

16 January 2023

Houard, A., Walch, P., Produit, T., Moreno, V., Mahieu, B., Sunjerga, A., Herkommer, C., Mostajabi, A., Andral, U., André, Y.-B., Lozano, M., Bizet, L., Schroeder, M. C., Schimmel, G., Moret, M., Stanley, M., Rison, W. A., Maurice, O., Esmiller, B., … Wolf, J.-P. (2023). Laser-guided lightning. Nature Photonics. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-01139-z

AbstractLightning discharges between charged clouds and the Earth’s surface are responsible for considerable damages and casualties. It is therefore important to develop better protection methods in addition to the traditional Franklin rod. Here we present the first demonstration that laser-induced filaments—formed in the sky by short and intense laser pulses—can guide lightning discharges over considerable distances. We believe that this experimental breakthrough will lead to progress in lightning protection and lightning physics. An experimental campaign was conducted on the Säntis mountain in north-eastern Switzerland during the summer of 2021 with a high-repetition-rate terawatt laser. The guiding of an upward negative lightning leader over a distance of 50 m was recorded by two separate high-speed cameras. The guiding of negative lightning leaders by laser filaments was corroborated in three other instances by very-high-frequency interferometric measurements, and the number of X-ray bursts detected during guided lightning events greatly increased. 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.

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

There was no specific funding for the research done

https://oar.a-star.edu.sg/communities-collections/articles/18894

1749-4893
1749-4885

Institute of Materials Research and Engineering