Laser Ablation of Metals by Low-Density Picosecond Pulses

Thresholds of laser ablation ofmetals for the picosecond range of laser pulse duration are determined. Within the two-temperature metal model, the space-time dependences of the electron and lattice temperature are obtained. It is shown that ablation parameters become dependent on the pulse duration at the pulse duration τ _p ≥ τ _ie , where τ _ie is the cooling time of the electron gas. For noble metals, such pulse durations are τ _p ≈ 3 ? 10 ps.