Modeling femtosecond pulse laser damage using particle-in-cell simulations

Abstract. We present, to our knowledge, the first adaptation of the particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation method for use in the study of femtosecond pulse laser damage, including the first implementation of the Morse pair-potential for PIC codes. We compare the PIC method to a wide variety of currently used modeling schemes, ranging from purely ab initio molecular dynamics simulations to semi-empirical models with many fitting parameters and show how PIC simulations can provide a complementary approach by filling the gap in theoretical methodology between the two cases. We detail the necessity and implementation of an interatomic pair-potential in PIC studies of laser damage. Finally, we use our model to treat the full laser damage process of a copper target and show that our results compare well to simple scaling laws for crater size.

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