Three-dimensional thermal response of a metal subwavelength tip under femtosecond laser illumination

The current work investigates numerically and experimentally the three-dimensional (3D) thermal response of a subwavelength tip illuminated by an ultrashort laser pulse. A model is developed on the nanometric scale to predict the 3D tip temperature evolution from the initial laser irradiation through the thermal equilibrium (several nanoseconds). The evolution of the ion temperature is experimentally monitored by atom probe tomography. The anisotropic ion emission observed on steel specimens illuminated with an ultrashort laser and the evaporation behavior of amorphous glasses is predicted by our 3D thermal model.