Charge on luminous bodies resembling natural ball lightning produced via electrical arcs through lump silicon.

A phenomenon resembling natural ball lightning can be produced via electrical arcing through silicon. We use lump silicon instead of silicon wafers to achieve higher production rates and larger, longer-lived luminous balls than previously reported. The luminous balls consist of a silicon core surrounded by a porous network of loosely bound silicon dioxide nanoparticles. We find that the balls carry a small net charge on the order of 10(-12) C and propose that the nanoparticles are electrostatically bound to the core due to this charge.