Influence of an increase in the transparency on the intense evaporation of metals by optical radiation

It is shown that the presence of a temperature maximum inside a superheated liquid metal layer imposes restrictions on the position and size of a possible region of enhanced transparency (bleached region), where the absorption coefficient a of the incident radiation is assumed to be small. The maximum steady-state thickness of a bleached layer is much less than the value of α–1 in this layer. On the other hand, the optical thickness of the surface layer which retains its metallic properties is not small, i.e., the appearance of a bleached region cannot generally explain the change in the reflection coefficient of an illuminated target under steady-state intense evaporation conditions.