LANGMUIR LABORATORY
Scientific and Engineering Achievements

New Mexico Tech students, faculty, and other investigators working at the laboratory have made a number of contributions to the understanding of thunderstorms. At various times, they have:

• Developed instruments for balloons, airplanes and rockets to measure electric fields in the vicinity of thunderstorms. (See Electric Field Meters.)
• Mapped some of the electrical features inside, around, and beneath thunderstorms.
• Developed ways to trigger lightning using inexpensive model rockets.
• Developed a radio interferometer for observing the propagation of lightning channels inside clouds.
• Designed and constructed a special radar for studying the alignment of ice crystals by the electric fields of thunderclouds.
• Mapped the trajectories of precipitation particles inside thunderclouds using multiple Doppler radars.
• Proposed a design for lightning rod tips which better protect nearby installations.
• Measured the production of nitrogen oxides around thunderstorms in order to compare them with production of man-made sources.