DECRYPTION – A team of French, Swiss and German researchers managed to guide lightning over several tens of meters. A world first.
It’s an old physicist’s dream that has just come true: for the first time, a laser has guided a lightning bolt to direct it towards a lightning rod, thus increasing the radius of action of the latter. The French, German and Swiss scientists behind this success report their results on Monday in the journal Nature Photonics. Beyond the possible practical applications, the experimental prowess is remarkable: it has been more than fifty years, shortly after the invention of the first lasers, that the idea had germinated in the minds of physicists.
The principle itself is quite simple: by tearing electrons from the atoms it encounters, a fairly intense laser should be able to form a thin channel of conductive air capable of attracting and guiding lightning. But if guiding an electric arc by laser over a few meters is almost child’s play in the laboratory, reproducing the experiment in real conditions with real lightning, in a real storm…
This article is for subscribers only. You have 84% left to discover.
Pushing back the limits of science is also freedom.
Keep reading your article for €0.99 for the first month
Already subscribed? Login