Laser-irradiated thermodynamic behaviors of spallation and recombination at solid-state interface

A microscopic insight of interfacial spallation and recombination behaviors at multilayer thin-film interface induced by incident femtosecond pulsed laser is presented in this paper. Such two different aforementioned behaviors are investigated via the thermodynamic trajectories obtained by using standard Lennard-Jones (L-J) molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Based on the simulation results, the interfacial damages of multilayer thin film are dominated by a critical threshold that induces an extraordinary expansive dynamics and phase transitions leading to the structural softened and tensile spallation at interface. The critical damage threshold is evaluated at around 8.5 J/m(2) which governs the possible occurrence of two different regimes, i.e. interfacial spallaiton and recombination. In interfacial damage region, quasi-isothermal thermodynamic trajectories can be observed after the interfacial spallation occurs. Moreover, the result of thermodynamic trajectories analyses indicates that, the relaxation of pressure wave may cause the over-heated interfacial zone to reduce volumetric density, thus leading to structural softness and even weaken interfacial structural strength. The crucial effect leading to the phenomenon of low tension spallation is identified. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.