Possible electronic entropy-driven mechanism for non-thermal ablation of metals

The physical mechanism of metal ablation induced by femtosecond laser irradiation was investigated in this study. Calculations based on finite-temperature density functional theory indicate that condensed copper becomes unstable at high electron temperatures due to an electronic entropy effect. Based on these results, an electronic entropy-driven mechanism is proposed to explain the metal ablation. Furthermore, a mathematical model is developed to simulate the ablation depth, where the effect of the electronic entropy is included. This mathematical model can quantitatively describe the experimental data in the low-laser-fluence region, where the electronic entropy effect is determined to be especially important.