This work explores the propagation of photo-thermoelastic disturbances in an infinite and isotropic semiconductor containing a spherical cavity. The analysis utilizes a fully coupled approach that integrates carrier (plasma) transport, heat conduction, and elastic deformation, effectively portraying the interplay among electronic excitation, increase in temperature, and mechanical deformation. The cavity’s inner boundary excited by a surface heat flux that decays exponentially in time, representing a short pulse. An analytical framework relating to pulsed photo-thermal loading in semiconductors containing internal voids is developed and presented in this research. The governing equations are solved, and boundary conditions are applied to derive closed-form expressions for the physical fields, and the transformed solutions are inverted using eigenvalue decomposition to retrieve the fields in space-time. Numerical illustrations are reported for a silicon-like material to provide quantitative insight into the evolution of temperature, displacement, stress, and carrier density, as well as the associated electrochemical potential energy. The graphical results elucidate how transient behavior depends on radial position, and they highlight the role of coupling among the plasma, thermal, and elastic subsystems in shaping peak magnitudes, decay rates, and spatial attenuation.
Abbas et al. (Mon,) studied this question.