Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> At 10:39 PM 2/17/2006, you wrote:
Original poster: "D.C. Cox" <resonance@xxxxxxxxxx>They have this system in operation at the Univ. of New Mexico. A researcher is using a 30 watt argon-ion laser to trigger strikes.Dr. Resonance
I hadn't heard of anyone using such low power gas lasers. The Japanese researchers used 50 ns pulses with 1kJ energy (about 20 GW) from a CO2 laser in combination with a frequency quadrupled YAG delivering 100 mJ/pulse at 266 nm. I found a reference to some New Mexico researchers using a pulsed UV laser by itself, but they're doing femtosecond pulses, so the peak powers are also quite high. I don't know if they've actually done it with real lightning (it's described in one reference as a laboratory experiment), but they've gone out and patented it. Patent 5175664 (read it as http://www.uspto.gov/)
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 7:38 PM Subject: air ionization w/laserOriginal poster: Ian Macky <ian@xxxxxxxxx> How much laser power is needed to ionize air? Am thinking triggering and directing strikes. If you could ionize, the strike should follow that straight path, yes? The people at wickedlasers.com have green handhelds up to 300mw, compared to 5mw for typical red pointer. --ian