Effect of plasma-surface heat transfer on enhancement of laser ablation in the presence of magnetic field

Abstract

We report on the numerical and experimental studies on the magnetic field-assisted laser ablation of copper by second harmonic nanosecond laser pulses. In particular, we concentrated on the depth of ablation resulting from vaporization and melt ejection in the absence of a field and in the presence of a 0.3 T magnetic field. The incubation effect in both cases was small, although it is slightly pronounced in the presence of a magnetic field. The magnetic field-assisted laser ablation resulted in a higher ablation rate. We attribute this to the enhancement of plasma–target coupling via heat transfer. A magnetic field improves the photoluminescence peak intensities of CuO nanoparticles deposited in the ablated copper's peripheral region. The simulated results, obtained by considering plasma–surface energy coupling, are in excellent agreement with the experimental results. Furthermore, we also investigated the temperature profiles and thermal stress of the other two metals (chromium and zinc) by employing the same numerical formulation. The temperature and thermal stress in the presence of the magnetic field are found to be higher than those without a magnetic field. We revealed that the rough surface effects on temperature profiles in the absence and presence of the magnetic field. This study will be useful in increasing the ablation rate of the metals (copper, chromium, and zinc) in the presence of a magnetic field.