Thermalization time of thin metal film heated by short pulse laser

Based on the hyperbolic two-step heat conduction model, using the Laplace transform and numerical inverse transform method (Riemann-sum approximation method), the thermal behaviour of thin metal films has been studied during femtosecond pulse laser heating. Also the thermalization time, which is the time for the electron gas and solid lattice to reach thermal balance, has been studied in detail. The values of thermalization time for silver (Ag), gold (Au), copper (Cu) and lead (Pb) are obtained. The effects of material parameters of the thin metal film on the thermalization time are considered for the four kinds of metals by changing one of the parameters and regarding the other parameters as constant. For a typical metal material, the order of the thermalization time is of the order of hundreds of picoseconds. The thermalization time decays exponentially with the increase of phonon－electron coupling factor or electron gas thermal conductivity, and it increases linearly with the increase of the ratio of lattice heat capacity to electron gas heat capacity. However, the relaxation time of the electron gas has very little effect on the thermalization time.