Heating of solid targets by subpicosecond laser pulses

Scaling laws for plasma temperature, thickness of the heated region, and other important plasma parameters are discussed for high-intensity subpicosecond laser plasma interactions with solid targets. Effects of inhibited heat fluxes are taken into account following recent formulations of the nonlocal thermal transport theories. It is shown that for constant laser intensities in excess of 10¹⁷ W/cm², i.e., in the anomalous skin-effect regime, plasma temperature increases much faster and to higher values for the inhibited thermal conductivity as compared to heating rates with the classical thermal transport. It it also shown, however, that the dynamical evolution of the heating process is primarily influenced by the time evolution of the laser intensity, which on the scale of ultrashort laser pulses makes the evolution of a plasma temperature almost identical for the classical and inhibited thermal transports.