Atomistic simulation of ultra-short pulsed laser ablation of Al: an extension for non-thermalized electrons and ballistic transport

Abstract

For our model material aluminum, the influence of laser pulse duration in the range between 0.5 and 16 ps on the ablation depth is investigated in a computational study with a hybrid approach, combining molecular dynamics with the well known two-temperature model. A simple, yet expedient extension is proposed to account for the delayed thermalization as well as ballistic transport of the excited electrons. Comparing the simulated ablation depths to a series of our own experiments, the extension is found to considerably increase the predictive power of the model.