Nuclear fusion from Coulomb explosions of deuterated methane clusters subjected to ultraintense femtosecond laser pulses
Lu Hai-Yang(卢海洋)a), Wang Cheng(王成)a), Chen Guang-Long(陈光龙)a), KimCheol-Jungb), Liu Jian-Sheng(刘建胜)a), Ni Guo-Quan(倪国权)a)†, Li Ru-Xin(李儒新)a)‡, and Xu Zhi-Zhan(徐至展)a)
aState Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China; bKorea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Yusung, Taejon 305-353, Korea
Abstract This paper reports that Coulomb explosions taken place in the experiment of heteronuclear deuterated methane clusters ((CD4)n) in a gas jet subjected to intense femtosecond laser pulses (170mJ, 70fs) have led to table-top laser driven DD nuclear fusion. The clusters produced in supersonic expansion had an average size of about 5nm in radius and the laser intensity used was 3×1017W/cm2.The measured maximum and average energies of deuterons produced in the laser--cluster interaction were 60 and 13.5keV, respectively. From DD collisions of energetic deuterons, a yield of 2.5(±0.4)×104 fusion neutrons of 2.45MeV per shot was realized, giving rise to a neutron production efficiency of about 1.5×105 per joule of incident laser pulse energy. Theoretical calculations were performed and a fairly good agreement of the calculated neutron yield with that obtained from the present experiment was found.
Received: 21 April 2008
Revised: 26 June 2008
Accepted manuscript online:
Fund: Project
supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No
2006CB806000) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Grant No 10535070).
Cite this article:
Lu Hai-Yang(卢海洋), Wang Cheng(王成), Chen Guang-Long(陈光龙), KimCheol-Jung, Liu Jian-Sheng(刘建胜), Ni Guo-Quan(倪国权), Li Ru-Xin(李儒新), and Xu Zhi-Zhan(徐至展) Nuclear fusion from Coulomb explosions of deuterated methane clusters subjected to ultraintense femtosecond laser pulses 2009 Chin. Phys. B 18 537
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