Molecular dynamics model for heating of Coulomb clusters by laser field Original Research Article

The heating and evolution of ionized single cluster in a strong laser field is studied with molecular dynamics simulation. The electron temperature increase and particle expelling from evolution of deuterium and iron clusters are discussed. It is shown that the optimal regime for effective electron heating corresponds to laser field comparable to the cluster Coulomb field. Our simulations demonstrate that during just several laser periods ions are accelerated up to averaged energy much higher than the electron temperature. The dynamics of two clusters is also presented.