*Laser Program, L-477, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550 USA **Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London, SW7 UK ***Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Recent investigations of the interaction of intense, femtosecond laser pulses with large atomic
clusters has shown that the laser pulse will ionize and subsequently heat the inertially confined
cluster. The result is that ions with substantial kinetic energy are ejected when the heated
cluster explodes. When low to mid - Z clusters are irradiated fast ions ejected from the cluster
arise from the Coulomb explosion of the cluster once the laser field strips the cluster's
electrons. We have recently performed Coulomb explosion experiments with D2 clusters and
have shown that ions with sufficient energy to drive DD fusion are produced in the explosions.
Studies of this process indicate that it is possible to manipulate the Coulomb explosion
energies through control of laser and cluster size parameters, opening the possibility of further
enhancing the fusion yields achievable with table-top lasers. Recent experimental results on
these effects will be presented, along with models to permit extrapolation to higher fusion
yield.