[Luis França]

Laser Used To Get Thunderclouds Sparking

15 April 2008
Laser Used To Get Thunderclouds Sparking
by Kate Melville

Using a powerful ground-based laser, European scientists were able to induce electrical activity in thunderclouds, a precursor to stimulating lightning strikes on demand. Optics Express reports that the experiment was conducted at the top of South Baldy Peak, in New Mexico, where the laser pulses created electricity conducting plasma filaments in the clouds. The filaments were too short-lived to create air-to-ground lightning but the researchers believe that triggering actual lightning strikes is not far away.

"This was an important first step toward triggering lightning strikes with laser beams," says Jérôme Kasparian of the University of Lyon in France. "It was the first time we generated lighting precursors in a thundercloud." The next step of generating full-blown lightning strikes may come, he adds, after the team reprograms their lasers to use more sophisticated pulse sequences that will make longer-lived filaments.

Producing lightning strikes on demand would allow researchers to study the mechanisms underlying lightning. Moreover, triggered lightning strikes will allow engineers to evaluate and test the lightning-sensitivity of airplanes and critical infrastructure such as power lines.