Thermomechanical effects in laser-matter interaction

In most of pulsed laser material processing of which drilling, surface treatment, laser cleaning or shock hardening, the incident energy is distributed among several complex phenomena such as reflection, absorption, radiation or hydrodynamic depending on wavelength, polarization, pulse duration, energy end power density, spot size, nature of the material and last but not least the nature and the pressure of the surrounding gas. Experiments were conducted in order to characterize all these phenomena involved in different applications and to contribute in a better understanding of the laser material processing. Experimental data has been obtained from several diagnostic techniques such as integrating sphere, thermocouple probes, ballistic pendulum, pressure gauges, electromagnetic field detectors, spectrographs and high-speed camera over a wide range of energy and power density and gas pressure.