Pulsed Source of Charged Particles and Neutrons Based on a 10-Petawatt Laser System Irradiating a Microcluster Medium

The high energy of the XCELS laser allows for obtaining a large number of laser-heated/accelerated particles and products of nuclear reactions initiated by them in a large-volume transparent microstructured medium. As an example, the mode of laser–plasma interaction was studied at a moderately relativistic heating pulse intensity of ~10 18 W/cm 2 in a sufficiently large volume of a microcluster medium, which does not require sharp focusing of a powerful laser beam(s), simplifying the experiment. It has already been shown earlier that, for a laser pulse with an energy of ~1 J, under certain conditions for the geometric and compositional parameters of a deuterium-containing cluster target, it is possible to maximize the yield of hot superponderomotive electrons and explosively accelerated deuterons. In this study, this approach was extended to a femtosecond laser driver with an energy hundreds of times greater (300–400 J). Recommendations were developed for obtaining a record number of laser-heated deuterons of moderate energies (0.2–2 MeV) in a large volume of a cluster medium (heavy water spray) at the level of 10 15 particles per shot and for creating a superbright source of thermonuclear DD neutrons with an expected peak flux of ~10 18 neutrons cm –2 s –1 .