What are Electric Trees?

How cool would it be to have a bolt of lightening frozen in time and sitting on the mantel piece in your own living room? Lichtenberg figures are tree-like branches of electric discharge similar to lightning.

They can be created in laboratories within solid materials (such as acrylic plastics or glass) by injecting a beam of high speed electrons from a linear electron beam accelerator. Watch this informative video to see exactly how scientists create these amazing electric trees.