Recently, the professional academic journal "Nature-Photonics" under Springer Nature published a new physics research paper stating that a powerful laser facing the sky can create a virtual lightning rod to divert the path of electric shock.
The discovery could open the way for better lightning protection for critical infrastructure such as power stations, airports, and transmission pads.
The first author and co-corresponding author of the paper, Aurélien Houard from the Ecole Polytechnique and the French National School of Advanced Technology, together with collaborators, will conduct experiments in the Sentis Mountains in northeastern Switzerland in the summer of 2021 , exploring whether lasers can guide lightning strikes.
A laser the size of a large car is mounted near a telecommunications tower that fires up to a thousand pulses per second, and the tower is struck by lightning about 100 times a year.
The laser was operated for more than 6 hours during the thunderstorm activity, and the authors observed that the laser transferred 4 upward lightning discharges.
They believe that this research discovery expands the understanding of laser physics in the atmosphere and may help develop new lightning protection strategies.
Scientify from the University of Geneva provided two videos. One is to show the 3D reconstruction of the lightning event on July 24, 2021. In this event, it was observed that the laser guided the lightning at a distance of more than 50 meters; shift.
(Reporter Sun Zifa made Yue Ziyan video source Springer Nature)
Editor in charge: [Fang Jialiang]