It seems that science is once again going to inject some 21st century technology into an invention that has become somewhat outdated: the lightning rod. And it is that, this system has remained unchanged for centuries since Benjamin Franklin, in 1752, created the first of his class after his famous experiment of flying a kite with a key during a storm.
Now, French scientists have created a way to deflect lightning using a laser beam. In short, they have devised a system that has managed to deflect the beams with a high-powered laser aimed at the sky from the top of Mount Santis, in northeastern Switzerland.
Los scientists claim that the new technique could protect key infrastructure from catastrophes such as power plants, airports, launch pads and other buildings.
“We wanted to give the first demonstration that the laser can influence a beam, and the simplest thing is to guide it,” says Aurelien Houard, a physicist at the Applied Optics Laboratory at the ENSTA Institute in Paris and lead author of the study.
How did they manage to deflect a storm bolt with a laser?
Lightning is a discharge of static electricity that builds up in thunderclouds or between clouds and the ground. The laser beam creates plasma, in which charged ions and electrons heat the air. The air becomes “partially conductive and therefore the preferred path for lightning,” they explain.
When scientists tested this theory in New Mexico in 2004, their laser didn’t catch the beam. That To be it failed because it did not emit enough pulses per second for lightning, which is generated in milliseconds. He added that it was also difficult to predict where lightning would strike. Nevertheless, In this experiment, the scientists left little to chance.
Well, the team of scientists climbed up to 2,500 meters high with the entire device and focused on the sky above a 124-meter-high transmission tower belonging to the telecommunications provider Swisscom, one of the European structures most affected by the rays (it is struck by lightning about 100 times a year).
Qualify that after two years building the powerful five-ton laser, it took several weeks to move it piece by piece by cable car.
In experiments conducted over two months in 2021, intense laser pulses were emitted, 1,000 times per second, to redirect the beams. All four lightning bolts that struck while the system was active were successfully intercepted. The scientists were able to photograph how their beam conducted a lightning 50 meters.
Most lightning is formed from precursors inside clouds, but some can come out of the ground if the electric field is strong enough. “The current and power of lightning become apparent when the ground connects with the cloud,” they explain.
The laser guides one of these beams, making it “much faster than the others…and straighter,” they continue. “It will then be the first to connect to the cloud before it turns on,” they add.
This means that, in theory, this technique could be used not only to drive lightning away, but to unleash it. Now, in practice, that would require high conductivity in the laser plasma, which scientists don’t think they’ve mastered yet.
If it continues to develop, This laser arrester could protect critical infrastructure such as power plants, airports, wind farms, and launch pads. Each year, lightning strikes cause billions of dollars worth of damage to buildings, communication systems, power lines, and electrical equipment, as well as killing thousands of people.
Yes indeed, scientists say that it will take between 10 and 15 more years of work before the laser arrester could be in common use. One concern is to avoid interference with aircraft in flight. In fact, air traffic in the area was disrupted when the researchers used the laser.
