Possible electronic entropy-driven mechanism for non-thermal ablation of metals

The physical mechanism for metal ablation induced by femtosecond laser irradiation was investigated. Results of calculations based on finite-temperature density functional theory (FTDFT) indicate that condensed copper becomes unstable at high electron temperatures due to an increase of electronic entropy at large volume, where the local density of states near the Fermi energy increases. Based on these results, an electronic entropy-driven (EED) model is proposed to explain metal ablation with a femtosecond laser. In addition, a mathematical model is developed for simulation of the laser ablation, where the effect of the electronic entropy is included. This mathematical model can quantitatively describe the experimental data in the low-laser-fuence region, where the electronic entropy effect is determined to be especially important.