Luis ROSO

Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Salamanca, 37008 Salamanca, Spain

(Received October 23, 1995; Accepted August 20, 1996)

The ponderomotive motion of a charged particle inside a Terawatt-Petawatt laser pulse is studied. Based on a very simple classical model to account for the Coulomb repulsion, the possibility of nuclear collisions in the keV-MeV range is shown. Also, a simple analytical expression for the minimum internuclear distance is given. Since this range of energies is significant to trigger nuclear fusion reactions, this may result in an alternative approach to controlled fusion based on a non-thermalized plasma. The proposed system works for the deuterontriton fusion reaction, but is more appropriate for other reactions like the proton-⁷Li reaction, and also like the ecologically clean, boron-¹¹B reaction..

Key words : Terawatt lasers - laser induced nuclear collisions