A computational study of heat transfer and material removal in picosecond laser micro-grooving of copper

Abstract

A 2D two-temperature model (TTM) is developed for picosecond laser micro-grooving of copper (Cu) and discretized using the finite difference scheme, to explore the temperature evolution and groove formation process. For lattice and electron subsystems, as well as the coupling strength between them, comprehensive temperature-dependent properties are employed and updated in real time to make the calculation more accurate. The model verification is then conducted and a reasonable good agreement has been found between predicted and measured groove depths. Using the verified model, computational studies of temperature field evolution are carried out in different fluence levels. For low fluence of around 0.283 J/cm2, phase change can be neglected, and the temperature difference between two subsystems decreases with an increase in pulse width and can be neglected when the pulse width is over 200 ps. In contrast, for high fluence of about 10.61 J/cm2, the maximum lattice temperature increases rapidly to boiling point within 3 ps, and the peak electron temperature is around 10 times higher, leading to material removal via evaporation. Under this high fluence level, groove depth around 0.25 μm is obtained within a 12 ps single pulse irradiation. In addition, thermal diffusion occurs from the residual hot zone adjacent to groove edge towards surrounding area during the off-pulse period, as the heat affected zone depth is up to 1 μm after 500 ps and over 4 μm after 6 ns, and the peak residual lattice temperature drops to about 396 K from boiling point within 53 ns. Moreover, the groove depth and groove profile show a periodically evolving manner with respect to scanning times, and for each scanning, a slow-fast-slow pattern has been observed in groove depth increase and profile development.