Dependence of the neutron yield from CD4 clusters irradiated with an intense femtosecond laser on the deuterium-ion's energy distribution

Heteronuclear clusters recently obtained interest for their own ability to generate enough high energy ions to produce fusion neutrons efficiently with a table-top-sized laser system. A neutron generation experiment with deuterated methane (CD4) clusters exposed to a femtosecond laser beam (620 mJ, 28 fs) was done. The relation of the ion energy distribution to the cluster size was studied. By analyzing time-of-flight ion signals, neutron yield was estimated to be 2x105 per laser shot.