Lasers may someday be used to protect telecom towers from lightning strikes. In an experiment conducted on the Säntis mountain in Switzerland during the summer of 2021, lightning bolts were safely guided away from a tower by a high-repetition-rate terawatt laser, according to a paper published this week in Nature Photonics by Aurélien Houard, a research scientist in Physics at Ecole Polytechnique in France. The test has been corroborated by three subsequent trials.
“This work paves the way for new atmospheric applications of ultrashort lasers and represents an important step forward in the development of laser-based lightning protection for airports, launchpads or large tower infrastructures,” Houard wrote.
Lightning causes thousands of fatalities and billions of dollars in damage annually. Cell towers and other tall structures are currently being protected by a technology, the lightning rod, which was invented by Ben Franklin in the 18th century. So a technology refresh is probably in order.
“Like a high-tech hammer of Thor, a powerful laser can grab hold of a lightning bolt and reroute its path through the sky,” wrote Maria Temming in Science News. “Scientists have used lasers to wrangle electricity in the lab before, but this is the first demonstration that the technique works in real-world storms and could someday lead to better protection against lightning.”
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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