Researchers have demonstrated several ways of achieving table-top fusion, but the fusion of heavier nuclei remained something requiring more exotic equipment (or stars). Now Isidore Last and Joshua Jortner of Tel-Aviv University have calculated that there may be an easy route to nucleosynthesis in the laboratory, using nanodroplets of methane, water and ammonia.
The idea is to blast the droplet with intense femtosecond-long laser pulses. Very strong ionization then leads to a "coulomb explosion" which should be able to fuse nuclei heavier than deuterons. It might even be able to reproduce the reactions of the carbon–nitrogen–oxygen cycle that takes place in stars.
Further reading
Isidore Last and Joshua Jortner 2006 Phys. Rev. Lett. 97 173401.