Abstract
Igniting and guiding electrical discharges to desired targets in the ambient atmosphere have been a subject of intense research efforts for decades. Ability to control discharge and its propagation can pave the way to a broad range of applications from nanofabrication and plasma medicine to monitoring of atmospheric pollution and, ultimately, taming lightning strikes. Numerous experiments utilizing powerful pulsed lasers with peak-intensity above air photoionization and photo-dissociation have demonstrated excitation and confinement of plasma tracks in the wakes of laser field. Here, we propose and demonstrate an efficient approach for triggering, trapping and guiding electrical discharges in air. It is based on the use of a low-power continuous-wave vortex beam that traps and transports light-absorbing particles in mid-air. We demonstrate a 30% decrease in discharge threshold mediated by optically trapped graphene microparticles with the use of a laser beam of a few hundred milliwatts of power. Our demonstration may pave the way to guiding electrical discharges along arbitrary paths.
Highlights
Igniting and guiding electrical discharges to desired targets in the ambient atmosphere have been a subject of intense research efforts for decades
Electrical discharge in gases is manifested in a wide range of high voltage systems[1] and natural lightning phenomena[2]
High voltage discharges are of fundamental significance for accelerator physics and high energy photon sources[5–7]
Summary
Igniting and guiding electrical discharges to desired targets in the ambient atmosphere have been a subject of intense research efforts for decades. We propose and demonstrate an efficient approach for triggering, trapping and guiding electrical discharges in air. Pulsed laser beams with electric field intensities above air photoionization threshold were shown to induce plasma channels in which electrical discharge could be sustained and guided[20–27]. Such direct optical field-induced photoionization requires very high optical field intensities, comparable with the atomic binding field (~1011 to 1012 V m−1). Use of such high peak-power laser beams may limit the scope of applications. We locally control the mean free path of electrons in the ambient air and tailor conditions of electric breakdown
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