Interaction of intense laser pulses with hydrogen atomic clusters

The interaction between intense femtosecond laser pulsesand hydrogen atomic clusters is studied by a simplified Coulombexplosion model. The dependences of average proton kinetic energy oncluster size, pulse duration, laser intensity and wavelength arestudied respectively. The calculated results indicate that theirradiation of a femtosecond laser of longer wavelength on hydrogenatomic clusters may be a simple, economical way to produce highlykinetic hydrogen ions. The phenomenon suggests that the irradiationof femtosecond laser of longer wavelength on deuterium atomicclusters may be easier than that of shorter wavelength to drivenuclear fusion reactions. The product of the laser intensity and thesquared laser wavelength needed to make proton energy saturated as afunction of the squared cluster radius is also investigated. Theproton energy distribution calculated is also shown and comparedwith the experimental data. Our results are in agreement with theexperimental results fairly well.