Direct observation of laser guided corona discharges

TL;DR

This paper reports direct observation of laser-guided corona discharges, showing that laser filaments can guide and enhance high-voltage discharges with prolonged fluorescence lifetime, advancing laser-based lightning control methods.

Contribution

It provides the first direct observation of laser-guided corona discharges and measures their fluorescence lifetime, revealing potential for improved atmospheric lightning control.

Findings

Corona discharge can be guided along laser plasma filaments.

Laser filaments enhance corona discharge interaction.

Fluorescence lifetime of guided discharge is several microseconds.

Abstract

Laser based lightning control holds a promising way to solve the problem of the long standing disaster of lightning strikes. But it is a challenging project due to insufficient understanding of the interaction between laser plasma channel and high voltage electric filed. In this work, a direct observation of laser guided corona discharge is reported. The high voltage corona discharge can be guided along laser plasma filament, and enhanced through the interaction with laser filaments. The fluorescence lifetime of laser filament guided corona discharge was measured to be several microseconds, which is 3 orders of magnitude longer than the fluorescence lifetime of laser filaments. This could be advantageous towards laser assisted leader development in the atmosphere.