Coulomb expansion of deuterated methane clusters irradiated by an ultrashort intense laser pulse

The simulations of three-dimensional particle dynamics show thatwhen irradiated by an ultrashort intense laser pulse, the deuteratedmethane cluster expands and the majority of deuterons overrun themore slowly expanding carbon ions, resulting in the creation of twoseparated subclusters. The enhanced deuteron kinetic energy and anarrow peak around the energy maximum in the deuteron energydistribution make a considerable contribution to the efficiency ofnuclear fusion compared with the case of homonuclear deuteriumclusters. With the intense laser irradiation, the nuclear fusionyield increases with the increase of the cluster size, so thatdeuterated heteronuclear clusters with larger sizes are required toachieve a greater neutron yield.