Numerical simulation of laser ablation for photovoltaic materials

The objective of this work is to help understanding the impacts of short laser pulses on materials of interest for photovoltaic applications, namely aluminum and silver. One of the traditional advantages of using shorter laser pulses has been the attempt to reduce the characteristic heat affected zone generated in the interaction process, however the complex physical problem involved limitates the integration of simplified physical models in standard tools for numerical simulation. Here the interaction between short laser pulses and matter is modeled in the commercial finite-element software Abaqus. To describe ps and fs laser pulses properly, the two-temperature model (TTM) is applied considering electrons and lattice as different thermal transport subsystems. The Material has been modeled as two equally sized and meshed but geometrically independent parts, representing each the electron and the lattice domain. That means, both domains match in number and position of the respective elements as well as in their shape and their size. The laser pulse only affects the electron domain so that the lattice domain remains at ambient temperature. The thermal connection is only given by the electron-phonon coupling, depending on the temperature difference between both domains. It will be shown, that melting and heat affected zones getting smaller with decreasing pulse durations. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.