Re: Magnitude of feet-scuffing voltage?

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> Just an idea. Consider a beam of light going through a set of crossed
> polarizers. Nearly nothing is going through. A Kerr cell is placed
> between the polarizers and the H.V. is applied. The amount of light
> passing now depends on the d.o.p. One electrode of the cell is grounded,
> the other is connected to the object whose potential is measured with
> respect to the ground. The signal from the photocell will be proportional
> to the E^2 in the region traversed by light. This is not a typical
> application of the Kerr effect but it may work for what you want.
> You have to calibrate the system with a power supply.

I was after a voltmeter, but your idea is VERY COOL.  If a thin, wide,
electrode-less Kerr cell was constructed, it might directly display a sort
of 2D slice of the e-field surrounding any object which was held near it.
No oils or fibers!  However, it probably would require a significant
thickness, so that the polarization rotation effect occurs at low values
of e-field.  I wonder which material would have the strngest Kerr effect
at a particular volts/meter.


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