Short-pulse laser heating of metals: a new approach

Recently, several groups have demonstrated that the spatial and temporal temperature distribution inside metals resulting from femtosecond laser pulses cannot be fully explained by the two-temperature model for the electrons and phonons. Since these short pulse lengths may be comparable to the electron temperature relaxation time, we introduce a heat flow which is nonlocal in time. By this way we are taking into account in first order a non-equilibrium distribution of the electrons. As a consequence, three additional terms appear in the differential equation for the electron temperature. Furthermore, we offer an explanation for the different response of metals to the laser radiation on the basis of the electron-phonon coupling constant and the average phonon frequencies squared, well-known quantities in McMillan's theory on superconductivity. Using a double temperature model with nonlocal heat flow and a laser pulse length of 1 ps, the calculated surface temperatures of the electron and phonon subsystems are presented for Cu, Nb, and Pb. This is compared with the results of a local heat flow approach and with the conventional theory as well. Additionally we present calculations of the electron surface temperature of a thin Au film. We find that our model is capable of describing the new measurements on Au films more consistently than the standard double temperature model.