Shock wave analysis of laser assisted particle removal

Laser assisted particle removal (LAPR) is an innovative laser cleaning technique which can remove various particles from solid surfaces via laser induced explosive evaporation of a chosen energy transfer medium, e.g., water. An Ar+ ion continuous-wave laser (488 nm) was used to study the CO2 laser pumped explosive evaporation of water adsorbed on a Si substrate. The probe laser beam was parallel to the sample surface at different displacements and interacted with the ejected material upon pulsed CO2 laser irradiation in analogy with the time resolved laser beam deflection experiments on laser induced vaporization of copper by Guo et al. [Opt. Commun. 77, 381 (1990)]. Using CO2 laser energies which are much greater than the LAPR thresholds, we observed the generation and propagation of a shock wave at supersonic speeds followed by a water vapor/aerosol/particle cloud at a much slower speed. From the evolution of the shock wave, the total conversion efficiency of the incident laser beam into the shock wave has been determined using a self-similar approximation.