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Novel effect: laser-induced weight variation of
liquids and solids
Elio B. Porcelli1∗and Victo S. Filho1
1H4D Scientific Research Laboratory - 1100 B15 Av. Sargento Geraldo,
Santana, SP 04674-225
E-mail: ∗elioporcelli@h4dscientific.com
November 2020
Abstract. We performed measurements of weight in transparent materials as
liquid water, ice and a quartz crystal when they are beamed by a laser. We
detected weight variations in all cases of those materials, with magnitudes of the
order of tenths to hundreds of milligrams-force. The highest value obtained was
for ice and the most interesting effect was the clear variation in weight that occurs
for beams in both vertical or horizontal directions. Such a phenomenon cannot
be caused by radiation pressure, reaction by vaporization, ejection of matter by
heating or piezoelectricity. This new and surprising effect can be exploited to
reach significant values so that it has future applications related to propulsion
without fuels in aerospace or aquatic vehicles.
Keywords: Diode-Laser, Weight Variation, Electric Permittivity, Transparent
Materials
Novel effect: laser-induced weight variation of liquids and solids 2
1. Introduction
It is well known from literature [1] that applying a
laser beam in some materials as PZT one can induce a
change in their physical properties, as the shear of their
piezoelectric coefficients. In addition, our previous
work has shown that semiconductor laser diodes can
induce forces at distance in arbitrary environments
when they operate under significant power [2]. It
is also known that when there is light incident on
some surfaces some interesting effects can occur, as the
photoelectric effect [3] or radiation pressure [4]. The
latter is the pressure performed on an arbitrary surface
due to the incidence of an electromagnetic wave, as
result of its linear moment. Despite of the small
magnitude of the radiation pressure force or light force,
it has relevant applications, as in spacecraft propulsion
by the solar sailing method [5]. Motivated by all of such
an information, we start investigating possible novel
effects which could occur on arbitrary materials when
subjected to laser beams, as done for some specific
materials in [1]. So, we choose different materials and
beamed them with our laser diode, analyzing possible
phenomena which could be detected in our simple
experimental setup.
In next section, we describe in detail the
experimental procedure adopted in our work. In the
following, we describe our main experimental findings
and discuss possible explanations for the novel effect
that we have found.
2. Experimental Work
2.1. Quartz crystal lighting with laser beam
A transparent quartz crystal of approximately 209 g
was placed on the tray of a precision electronic
analytical scale BEL model MARK S 303 with a
resolution of 1 mg and a maximum load capacity of
300 g. The crystal was illuminated internally by a blue
collimated laser beam of 450nm wavelength emitted
by a semiconductor laser diode of 3 W of optical
power in two cases, that is, with a continuous or a
pulsed way. The laser beam was fixedly projected in
the horizontal and vertical directions and also in a
variable way through sudden movements in order to
quickly illuminate the largest internal volume of the
crystal. Careful attention was paid to possible external
spurious factors -such as the local motion of air- so
that they could not interfere with the measurements of
force.
We assumed the possibility of electrical dipoles
influence due to the experimental verification of such
an idea for the cases of other physical systems reported
in our previous works concerning to high voltage
capacitors [6, 7, 8], piezoelectric materials [9, 10, 11],
superconductors [12], electromagnetic drives [13, 14]
and gyroscopes [15]. Besides, in such previous works,
we show the consistency of such a hypothesis from the
generalized quantum entanglement (GQE) concept,
described in more detail in [6, 16], so that it was
naturally justified to search for the same experimental
signature on this present work.
Surprisingly, some readings on the scale sometimes
indicated transient weight variations in fractions of
a second reaching a peak of 3 mg. Such tests
were performed at ambient temperature (25oC) and
assuming that the effect is related to the polarization of
the electronic, atomic and molecular electrical dipoles
in quartz (such a dielectric is polar) [17], the crystal
was cooled to a temperature just below 0oC in order to
increase the polarization with the decrease of thermal
agitation.
In a next step of the experimental procedure,
new weight measurements were performed with the
repetition of the previously mentioned projections of
the laser beam. In this condition, it was noticed that
weight variations became more frequent and reached a
much higher peak of 49 mg. Such weight variations
cannot be explained by a piezoelectric effect of the
crystal [18] (that is, contractions or expansions of
the crystal through the action of the electric field
component of the laser beam) because the materials
are practically insensitive to temperature variations
between zero and 50oC [19] and the piezoelectric effects
even decrease below 0oC [1].
Figure 1 shows a photo of the experimental setup
with the quartz crystal whose dielectric constant is
approximately r
∼
=10 [20].
Note that weight variations cannot be explained
Figure 1. Photo of the experimental procedure. The quartz
crystal is placed on the tray of the digital balance and it is
beamed by the laser diode.
Novel effect: laser-induced weight variation of liquids and solids 3
by a direct radiation pressure effect of the laser
beam [21] because the low power of the device used
in this experiment did not reach such a magnitude of
force. For such applications (use of a laser beam for
buoyancy), powers in the order of megawatts are used.
In any case, several direct projections of the laser beam
were made so continuously as in a pulsed way on the
aluminum tray of the scale (almost touching it) and no
variation in weight was observed. Such a test also rules
out the possibility that all weight variations shown
in this work are caused by some impulse resulting
from vaporization or material ejection due to the
heating of the contact region of the bodies with laser
beam. In fact, here we also emphasize that there
was practically no temperature rise in the illuminated
materials. Besides, after turning off the laser diode,
all the materials returned to the same weight before
exposure to the beam.
2.2. Liquid and Solid water lighting with laser beam
Thinking about expanding the weight variations
assuming that the effect is related to the polarization
of the electric dipoles, another material with a greater
dielectric constant was tested, such as water [22] in
its liquid state at two different temperatures (r
∼
=78
for temperature 25oC and r
∼
=85 for a temperature
of 5oC) confined inside a transparent cylindrical glass
container. Peaks in weight variations were recorded as
13 mg for approximately 85 ml at 25oC and 26 mg
for approximately 87 ml at 5oC. It was visible that
weight variations were more frequent with a decrease
in temperature and that the effect is even related to
the dielectric constant comparing the results of liquid
water with those of quartz crystal at the same room
temperature. No weight variation was measured with
the glass container empty. These measurements made
with liquid water rule out the hypothesis that the effect
is piezoelectric since it occurs only in solids [9, 11].
Figure 2 shows a photo of the experimental setup
with liquid water.
New weight readings were taken by measuring
the weight of a 16 g transparent ice cube with a few
centimeters on each side (solid water) taken from a
freezer at -10oC and supported by a glass container
placed on the scale tray. Figure 3 shows a photo
of the experimental setup with water in solid state.
Variations in weight by means of the application of the
laser beam were even more frequent and greater, with
the largest peak recorded being 209 mg.
3. Results and Discussion
The summary of our experimental results can be seen
in Table 1.
It is known in literature [23] that ice can vary its
electric permittivity for different temperatures. For -
10oC, its value is 95, as one can observe by analyzing
the data in Table 1 below and Table 1 in [23]. Therefore
it is clear that for higher magnitude of the relative
permittivity the weight reduction is also higher. In
addition, one can observe that when the temperature
decreases the weight reduction is higher, probably due
to the reduction of thermal agitation.
It was also noted that apparently the effects
are consistent with the fact that the electric field
component of the laser beam is aligned in a single
direction, that is, its polarization is linear since it is
emitted by a laser semiconductor diode [24]. This
causes the electrical dipoles inside the transparent
dielectrics used in the experiments to also polarize in a
single direction, thus optimizing the effect in general.
In the vast majority of measurements with the
quartz crystal, liquid water at room temperature and
cooled as well as in water in the solid state (ice) there
Figure 2. Photo of the second experiment, in which the crystal
is substituted by a glass of water in different temperatures, being
also beamed by the diode laser.
Table 1. Experimental values of peaks in weight reduction
obtained for the three bodies considered: quartz crystal, water
in two temperatures and ice. In the second column, we indicated
the relative permittivity rfor each material. All the materials
were beamed by a 3W blue laser diode. As one can see, for higher
values of rhigher values of weight reduction are obtained.
Material rWeight Reduction
Peak (mg)
Quartz Crystal (-2oC) 10 49
Water at 25oC 78 13
Cold Water (5oC) 85 26
Ice (-10oC) 95 209
Novel effect: laser-induced weight variation of liquids and solids 4
Figure 3. Photo of the third experiment, in which the crystal
is substituted by an ice cube, being also beamed by the diode
laser.
was a negative weight variation, that is, weight loss.
It is worth mentioning again that there was always
a recovery of all materials weights after the weight
variations caused by the application of the laser diode.
In summary, when the laser beamed opaque
materials or materials with low relative permittivity
it was not found any experimental signature of weight
reduction by the digital scale (the tray, the glass
container or the support for the ice). However, in all
of the cases in which we used simple samples of higher
relative permittivity we experimentally verified small
values of weight reduction.
4. Conclusions
We performed some experiments whose main objective
was to verify possible novel effects on some transparent
bodies which were beamed by a 3 W laser diode. We
found that in all the cases significant weight reduction
of the bodies could be measured by our digital scale.
The effect could be observed for all samples used (ice,
water and quartz crystal), that is, for transparent
materials with significant relative permittivity. The
dependence on the temperature also indicates that for
low temperature the effect is more evident. The higher
reduction in weight occurred for ice, reaching up to 209
mg. We considered the laser beam applied on those
bodies in all directions, including both the side and
the top of them. The forces laterally generated by the
laser indicates that the effect is not due to a reaction
force, as in the case of radiation pressure force. Such
a novel phenomenon deserves to be better understood
in order to achieve its possible enhancement and then
future useful applications, mainly in the aerospace
research. Besides, it is also needed a more profound
study concerning to the characterization of the effect
for applications and a theoretical model to completely
understand the phenomenon.
It is relevant to say that our data are preliminary,
but there is good evidences for the existence of the
novel effect and that our theoretical framework can
explain it.
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