Modeling the Formation of Periodic Nanostructures on Solid Surface Induced by Femtosecond Laser Ablation by Particle-in-Cell Method

Abstract

In this paper, we simulate by the particle-in-cell method (PIC) the mechanisms of femtoseconde (fs) laser interactions with a metallic or semiconductor target. Our aim is to identify the mechanisms that are responsible for surface nanostructure formation when laser fluences are close to the ablation threshold. For this purpose, we use a theoretical approach, which considers the solid as a gas of free electrons in a lattice of immobile ions. As a result, the simulations shown that those nanostructures occur during the first moments of the interaction and are due to the inhomogeneous distribution of the density of the electrons