Europeans and scientists from other countries have announced that they have tested for the first time an alternative lightning rod: a powerful laser that, when aimed at the sky, can influence the path of lightning.

The achievement could lead to improved lightning protection practices for critical infrastructure such as power plants, airports, missile launch sites, etc.

As they report in their publication in the photonics journal Nature Photonics, the researchers, led by Aurélien Ward of the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris, carried out the experiments on a mountain in Switzerland. Near a telecommunications tower, which is struck by lightning about 100 times a year, they installed a laser the size of a large car that sends up to 1,000 pulses per second into the sky.

During six hours of operation in the midst of a thunderstorm, the laser reflected four lightning bolts. Thus, they confirmed that the laser can reflect lightning and protect the targeted infrastructure.

Today, the most common protection is an electrically conductive metal rod that directs lightning into the ground. An alternative would be a moving laser beam aimed at the sky like a virtual lightning rod. So far, the idea has been tested only in the laboratory, and not in real conditions.

^{Source: RES-IPE}