Optical Sensing of the Corona Wind

Abstract

The phenomenon variously known as the corona wind, electric wind or ionic wind was first reported by Francis Hauksbee, curator of instruments for the Royal Society of London, in 1709. ... Yet, despite the enormous growth of interest in the study of electricity and electrical-related phenomena from the 1800s and the attention of such notaries as Newton, Faraday and Maxwell, the corona wind remained essentially as a curio to be used at science fairs, until the last twenty years. Literature on the corona wind prior to the 1970s is scarce, and its potential applications were limited by the technology of the day. On the other hand, corona discharges have found applications in many fields of industry.