ABLATION OF METALS BY ULTRASHORT LASER PULSES: THEORETICAL MODELING AND COMPUTER SIMULATION

Metal ablation taking into account the hydrodynamics of a dense ablated material with ion temperature close to critical is considered. An extended two-temperature model taking into account hydrodynamic plasma expansion and degeneracy of the electron gas is developed. The new version of the RAPID code is used to perform calculations of ablation rates for several metal targets under conditions where the electron degeneracy is important. 1