A unified model in the pulsed laser ablation process

Abstract:

In this unified model, we introduce the electron-phonon coupling time (t) and laser pulse width (t). For long pulses, it can substitute for the traditional thermal conduction model; while for ultrashort pulses, it can substitute for the standard two-temperature model. As an example of the gold target, we get the dependence of the electron and ion temperature evolvement on the time and position by solving the thermal conduction equation using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method.It is in good agreement with experimental data. We obtain the critical temperature of the onset of ablation using the Saha equation and then obtain the theoretical value of the laser ablation threshold when the laser pulse width ranges from nanosecond to femtosecond timescale, which consists well with the experimental data.

Key words:process;laser ablation;critical temperature;onset;Saha equation;theoretical;value;threshold;ranges;femtosecond;timescale;good;experimental data;method;FDTD;dependence;electron and ion temperature;evolvement;position;thermal conduction equation