Kinetics of laser-induced melting of thin gold film: How slow can it get?

ABSTRACT: Melting is a common and well-studied phenomenon that still reveals new facets when triggered by laser excitation and probed with ultrafast electron diffraction. Recent experimental evidence of anomalously slow nanosecond-scale melting of thin gold films irradiated by femtosecond laser pulses motivates computational efforts aimed at revealing the underlying mechanisms of melting. Atomistic simulations reveal that a combined effect of lattice superheating and relaxation of laser-induced stresses ensures the dominance of the homogeneous melting mechanism at all energies down to the melting threshold and keeps the time scale of melting within ~100 picoseconds. The much longer melting times and the prominent contribution of heterogeneous melting inferred from the experiments cannot be reconcile

SUBMITTER: Arefev MI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9491712 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature