Numerical Calculations for Femtosecond-Pulsed Laser Ablation of Gold Films with Vaporization Mechanism

This paper numerically calculated the femtosecond laser ablation of Au films. A femtosecond pulsed laser has a temporally short pulse that does not cause significant heat conduction in the material. This property of femtosecond laser pulse ablation makes sub-micron machining achievable with laser irradiation. Considering vaporization as the mechanism of the material removal, this paper utilized numerical method and two-temperature model to analyze the thermal process for femtosecond laser ablation of Au film. The variations of the ablation rate with laser fluence were compared with the available experimental data.