Dynamics of Coulomb explosion of hydrogen clusters in a high-intensity femtosecond laser pulse

Using Bethe model, the dynamics of the ionization and Coulomb explosion of hydrogen clusters (0.5-5 nm) in high-intensity (1015 -1017 W/cm2) femtosecond laser pulses have been studied theoretically, and the dependence of energy of protons emitted from exploding clusters on cluster size and laser intensity has been investigated. It is found that the maximum proton energy increases exponentially with the cluster size, and the exponent is mainly determined by the laser intensity. For a given cluster size, the maximum proton energy increases with increasing laser intensity and gets saturation gradually. The calculation results are in agreement with the recent experimental observation.