Simulation of ultrafast bursts of subpicosecond pulses: In pursuit of efficiency

Using a hydrodynamic two-temperature model, we simulate multi-pulse laser ablation of an aluminum bulk target. The results of modeling demonstrate that the effectiveness of the multi-pulse ablation increases an order of magnitude in comparison to a single-pulse ablation of the same energy, while the repetition rate grows up to several GHz because the material surface does not cool down substantially between successive pulses. To prevent the shielding and suppression effects, the fluence of each pulse in the burst should have a subthreshold value to avoid the generation of slow moving ablated condensed-phase nanolayers. The obtained results are consistent with recent experiments on ablation by ultrafast bursts of ultrashort pulses. Published by AIP Publishing.