Physicists have used laser tractor beams to change the path of electrical discharge in the laboratory. Their work could be shortened to redirect it to safety as well as to stop therapeutic applications, rather than stop the blazing fire they believe.
Dr Vladlen Shvedov of the Australian National University has previously created an empty laser beam, placing a space in the center of the beam so that everything behind it is dark. Particles trapped in this type of ray can be controlled by dragging the item towards the source of the beam. Tractor beams are not just a science fiction plot device; they are used by evil forces to capture spaceships of plucky heroes before their last-minute escape. In doing so, Chevrolet’s strategy allows tractor beams to operate from 100 times the distance as previously attempted.
The secret is to trap the dark heart particles of the tractor beam, Mirochnichenko told IFLScience, and then use the laser to heat them up. Electrical discharges then follow the “thermal channel” that is created.
Shvedov and Professor Andre Mirochnichenko of the University of New South Wales told Nature Communications that the beams could be used to conduct electrical discharges.
The authors of the paper hope that one day their strategy can be used to manage the lightning of the gods where it can do no harm. For all the hype about the fire during Australia’s massive 2019-2020 bushfire, it was mostly started by lightning. The same goes for wildfires elsewhere, revealing the gender sides and intentionally excluding forest.
The laser direction of the sparks was previously achieved, but simply to create a charge path through the atmosphere that propagates electricity requires an illegally powerful laser for anything on a small scale.
Preventing a fire in an area is a larger step than a laboratory, but Mirochnichenko pointed to IFLscience lasers that you can travel as straight as you can. He imagined that drones flying under storm clouds fired tractor beams to keep large areas of the flood free from lightning, at least not after the rains were expected to extinguish the fire.
In some cases dust may already be working in the atmosphere, Mirochnichenko told IFLScience, but experiments emitted graphene particles to play a similar role. Shvedov and Mirochnichenko, on the other hand, need only a thousandth of the energy to hold and heat their particles. Lasers running in the hundreds of milliwatts have proven to be suitable for laser conditions.
The laser direction of the sparks was previously achieved, but simply to create a charge path through the atmosphere that propagates electricity requires an illegally powerful laser for anything on a small scale.
Before shortening the concept for fire control, the authors think that there will be other uses, including less invasive methods of cancerous tissue removal, including treatment applications. “We have an invisible yarn, a pen with which we can write light and control electrical discharge within a tenth of a hair’s length,” Mirochnichenko said in a statement.
