Nuclear fusion in gases of deuterium clusters heated with a femtosecond laser

Recent experiments on the interaction of intense, ultrafast pulses with lar ge van der Waals bonded clusters have shown that these clusters can explode with substantial kinetic energy. Producing explosions in deuterium cluster s with a 35 fs laser pulse, deuterium ions were accelerated to sufficient k inetic energy to drive deuterium-deuterium (DD) nuclear fusion. By diagnosi ng the fusion yield through measurements of 2.45 MeV fusion neutrons, over 10(4) neutrons per laser shot were measured when 100 mJ of laser energy is used. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S1070-664X(00)90605-0].