Dynamics of Atomic Clusters Under Intense Femtosecond Laser Pulses

This chapter presents a review of theoretical modelling of intense ultrashort laser interaction with atomic clusters. We start with a brief description of interaction of laser with gas atoms and solid targets. This is followed by a general introduction of the non-linear, non-perturbative interaction of strong laser fields with atomic clusters. Various theoretical models are presented to explain the rich features observed in laser irradiated clusters. A molecular dynamic model developed by us to study laser-cluster interaction is briefly described.Various problems of contemporary interest like anisotropic emission of ions from argon and xenon clusters, effect of carrier-envelope phase on ionization dynamic of xenon clusters, neutron emission from deuterium clusters etc. are investigated and main results of these studies are presented.