If you’re sick of the spark plugs of your coupe giving way, here’re the laser spark plugs to liquefy your woes. As high voltages are required to ignite the internal combustion engine fuel, normal spark plugs are taxed too heavily and just can’t sustain the pressure.



These new plugs created by Colorado State University are long-lasting as they ignite engine with pulsed laser light, fed into the cylinders by glass fibres. The special 700 micrometres in diameter fiber required to create the spark is much stronger than the conventional ones and is hollow filled with helium. Also, the internal surface of the tube is coated with a 0.2 micrometre layer of reflective silver preventing any heat from escaping.



How it works:

Infrared light from a neodymium-YAG laser is fired into the tube, which carries it round bends and into the engine cylinders where a lens focuses all the energy onto a fine spot. This triggers the electrical breakdown of gas inside the cylinder and generates a plasma spark that ignites the fuel.