Nuclear fusion driven by Coulomb explosion of homonuclear and heteronuclear deuterium- and tritium-containing clusters

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The ionization and Coulomb explosion of homonuclear Dₙ and Tₙ $(n=959--8007)$ and heteronuclear (D₂O)ₙ and (T₂O)ₙ $(n=459--2171)$ clusters in very intense (I=5×10¹⁴--5×10¹⁸Wcm^-2) laser fields is studied using classical dynamics simulations. The efficiency of the $d+d$ and $d+t$ nuclear fusion driven by the Coulomb explosion (NFDCE) is explored. The $d+d$ NFDCE of (D₂O)ₙ heteronuclear clusters is enhanced by energetic and kinematic effects for D⁺, while for (T₂O)ₙ heteronuclear clusters the kinetic energy of T⁺ is dominated by energetic effects. The cluster size dependence of the fusion reaction yield has been established. The heteronuclear clusters provide considerably higher $d+d$ and $d+t$ fusion reaction yields than the homonuclear clusters of the same size. The clusters consisting of both D and T atoms can provide highly efficient $d+t$ fusion reactions.