Open AccessRevisiting neutron yield in table-top nuclear fusion driven by an intense femtosecond laser pulse interaction with the gas clusters
Author(s) -
Guanglong Chen,
Yunjiu Cao,
Li Ren,
Jiehui Huang,
Jie He
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of modern physics b/international journal of modern physics b
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1793-6578
pISSN - 0217-9792
DOI - 10.1142/s0217979221502878
Subject(s) - coulomb explosion , laser , femtosecond , radius , yield (engineering) , neutron , atomic physics , joule (programming language) , neutron source , nuclear fusion , materials science , cluster (spacecraft) , physics , optics , nuclear physics , energy (signal processing) , ionization , ion , programming language , computer security , quantum mechanics , computer science , metallurgy
With the development of femtosecond (fs) laser technology, an fs laser pulse with 10s of Joule, even 100s of Joule energy is available and the focused laser intensity can be expected to induce the pure Coulomb explosion of the cluster with a much larger average radius than before. Meanwhile, the production of gas cluster with an average radius of upto 10s of nanometer has been possible. In this case, it is necessary to reinvestigate the feasibility of 10 9 n/shot neutron yield for the practical application in the intense fs laser-driven nuclear fusion. In this work, the neutron yield from the explosions of the D 2 clusters of 6–20 nm average radius at the 0.5–100 J pulse energy and the CD 4 clusters was investigated theoretically. It is found that the optimum neutron yield of 10 9 n/shot can be obtained at the laser energy and the cluster radius currently available. However, a clustered-gas jet with a large cross-section is demanded to match the proper plasma diameter.