Chinese researchers create laboratory ball lightning-like structure using terahertz radiation
Scientists at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics have demonstrated a sustained electromagnetic phenomenon in the lab that resembles naturally occurring ball lightning.
What happened
A team at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics generated a concentrated electromagnetic sphere using terahertz radiation, producing a spherical soliton a few meters across that remained detectable for approximately 100 nanoseconds. The lab-created structure exhibited characteristics resembling theoretical models of natural ball lightning, including light emission across ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths, as well as evidence of ionization. The sphere appeared to confine its energy and expanded in ways consistent with theoretical models of how electromagnetic fields interact with surrounding matter. The findings were published in Nature Photonics under the title "Ball-lightning-like relativistic terahertz solitons."
Context
Ball lightning has been reported for centuries but remains poorly understood—scientists still lack a complete explanation for how these rare, luminous spheres of self-contained electricity spontaneously form in nature, where they can last several seconds and reach a meter or more in size. The successful laboratory creation of an analogous structure under controlled conditions provides researchers with a means to study the phenomenon experimentally, potentially revealing the mechanisms behind natural ball lightning formation. The team's work also suggests practical applications, including new approaches to high-energy photon storage and technologies that harness powerful radiation, expanding the significance of the research beyond fundamental physics.