Scientists demonstrate for the first time that a laser can be used to guide natural lightning
Benjamin Franklin is credited with inventing the lightning rod.
With further development, this Laser Lightning Rod could safeguard critical infrastructure including power stations, airports, wind farms and launchpads. Lightning inflicts billions of dollars in damage on buildings, communication systems, power lines and electrical equipment annually while also killing thousands of people.Lightning rods, dating back to Franklin’s time, are metal rods atop buildings, connected to the ground with a wire, that conduct electric charges lightning strikes harmlessly into the ground. Their limitations include protecting only a small area.
The system was placed on the mountaintop at an altitude of about 2,500 meters and was
focused on the sky above a 400-foot-tall transmission tower belonging to telecommunications provider Swisscom. Scientists fired intense laser pulses about 1,000 times per second to redirect the lightning strikes. In the first instance, the researchers used two high-speed cameras to record the redirection of the lightning’s path by more than 160 feet (50 meters). Three others were documented with different data.
The experiment was performed on Säntis Mountain, in northeast Switzerland. A 407-foot
communications tower there, equipped with a lightning rod, is struck roughly a hundred times a year. The researchers positioned a car-size device for generating a high-power, rapid-fire laser next to the communications tower and fired pulses into the sky during stormy weather. The laser created not only a beam of light, but also a channel of thinned-out air that beckoned the lightning.
