Laser-induced melting of thin conducting films. I. The adiabatic approximation

The authors explore the thermal characteristics of an isolated metallic film which is subjected to a short pulse of laser radiation. The main feature of such an adiabatic system is that no steady-state solution is possible. This means that the molten zone dimensions depend on the pulse duration length and also on the temperature dependence of the influencing parameters (essentially, the thermal diffusivity). The authors use available models for the temperature-dependent conductivity and diffusivity to compare the theoretical results with experimental data obtained from a quasi-adiabatic system