The laser lightning rod project

Abstract

Lightning is highly destructive due to its high power density and unpredictable character. Directing lightning away would allow to protect sensitive sites from its direct and indirect impacts (electromagnetic perturbations). Up to now, lasers have been unable to guide lightning efficiently since they were not offering simultaneously terawatt peak powers and kHz repetition rates. In the framework of the Laser Lightning Rod project, we develop a laser system for lightning control, with J-range pulses of 1 ps duration at 1 kHz. The project aims at investigate its propagation in the multiple filamentation regime and its ability to control high-voltage discharges. In particular, a field campaign at the Säntis mountain will assess the laser ability to trigger upward lightning.

Remote triggering of air-gap discharge by a femtosecond laser filament and postfilament at distances up to 80 m

“…A statistically significant number of electric events synchronized with the laser pulses of high-power Teramobile 29 facility was reported after real-scale experiments 30 . This research is continued nowadays, and a laser lightning rod based on the plasma and the low-density channel produced by a filament of 1.03-µm, ∼1-ps, Joule-level and high repetition rate laser is under investigation 31 .…”

Suppression of Nonlinear Optical Rogue Wave Formation Using Polarization-Structured Beams

“…We simulate our experiment by numerically solving coupled-mode Helmholtz equations for a beam propagating through a saturable self-focusing medium and obtain good agreement with experiment. Our results add to the growing understanding of rogue behavior [4,5], and they bear upon the use of polarization-structured beams to control nonlinear self-focusing processes in remote sensing [11,13,14], optical communications [25], and laser engineering [50]. The extent to which polarization structure is maintained during nonlinear self-focusing warrants further study.…”

“…Optical communications [10], remote sensing, and lightning strike control [11][12][13][14] are a few technologies that rely upon a careful understanding of the interplay between linear and nonlinear propagation effects. Encoding information in the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light is a promising way to increase the information capacity of optical communication channels [15][16][17][18].…”

Tracing Evolution of Angle-Wavelength Spectrum along the 40-m Postfilament in Corridor Air

“…During filamentation, the laser radiation localizes into single or multiple filaments due to the dynamic equilibrium between Kerr self-focusing and defocusing in the self-induced plasma [7][8][9][10][11][12]. Applications of filamentation in air include atmospheric remote sensing [13][14][15][16][17][18], triggering and guiding of high-voltage discharges [19][20][21][22], lightning control [23][24][25], filament-induced breakdown spectroscopy [26][27][28][29].…”