Laser ablation dynamics in metals: The thermal regime

Abstract

We studied the laser ablation dynamics of steel in the thermal regime both experimentally and theoretically. The real-time monitoring of the process shows that the ablation rate depends on laser energy density and ambient pressure during the exposure time. We demonstrated that the ablation efficiency can be enhanced when the pressure is reduced with respect to the atmospheric pressure for a given laser fluence, reaching an upper limit despite of high-vacuum conditions. An analytical model based on the Hertz-Knudsen law reproduces all the experimental results.