Modeling energy transfer in femtosecond pulsed laser ablation

using coupled oscillators

Marc Robert R. Casero,1* Andrian Lorenze L. Floro,1 McGilvyn Cris P. Salvador,1 Rogelio G. Dizon,1,2
Jenny Lou B. Sagisi,2 Wilson O. Garcia,3 and Lean L. Dasallas2
1
Department of Physical Sciences, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Sta. Mesa, Manila
2
Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City
3
National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City
*
Corresponding author: marcasero810@gmail.com

Abstract
We simulated the energy transfer in pulsed laser ablation (PLA) of copper using a coupled oscillator
model. The data was taken from several literature about thermal energy transfer on PLA and applied
to coupled oscillators. Two cases (position dependent and independent parameters) were tested and
the observed results exhibit behavior similar to the two-temperature model. Additionally, maximum
positions of the oscillator were compared to the threshold fluence of related studies and show striking
similarities. With the given results, the coupled oscillator model presents capability in representing
the thermal energy transfer in femtosecond pulsed laser ablation.
Keywords: Pulsed laser ablation, Two-temperature model, Coupled oscillation

1 Introduction
Femtosecond (fs) pulsed laser ablation (PLA) is a process that removes material from a solid via fs
laser beam irradiation. Fs pulsed laser ablation is used in different fields, such as thin film deposition
[1], opto-electronic [2] and medical purposes [3]. Fs pulsed laser ablation became subject of numerous
computational study, one of which includes two-temperature model (TTM) [4].
Introduced in 1974, TTM describes the heated metals in terms of two-temperature system of electron
and lattice, and calculates the energy transfer [5]. However, the underlying physics of this process is
complicated. Researchers new to the field might get discourage when they encounter complex ideas. A
simple and classical model will be useful to quickly understand the complex model.
We used a coupled oscillator model to describe the TTM. TTM describes the thermal energy transfer
of electron to the lattice while the coupled oscillator describes the energy transfer in the system involving
two or more masses connected via spring [6]. A coupled oscillator model with two masses connected via
spring resembles the TTM. Specifically, the spring in the coupled oscillator facilitates transfer of energy
resembling the electron - phonon coupling factor in TTM.
In this study, we describe the thermal energy transfer in fs PLA of Cu metal using a coupled oscillator
model. We represented the thermophysical properties of copper into the coupled oscillator parameters;
create an analogous temperature profile with respect to time; and compare the resulting description of
the coupled oscillator model with the fs PLA literature.

2 Methodology
We describe the thermal energy transfer in fs PLA using two cases (position independent/constant and
position dependent) of coupled oscillator model that corresponds to temperature dependent thermophys-
ical properties. The parameters for the coupled oscillator model represent the thermophysical properties
of copper in fs PLA, namely: thermal conductivity as coefficient of friction, electron-phonon coupling
factor as spring term, temperature as position, and electron and lattice heat capacity as the two masses.
We used a 10th order polynomial fitting to resemble the position-dependent mass and spring constant
of the coupled oscillator, mimicking the heat capacity and electron-phonon coupling factor in TTM. The
position independent values used are shown in Figure 1 (blue line). We got the values for coefficient of
friction by dividing 490 (thermal conductivity of an electron is 490 Jm−1 s−1 K−1 ) to the thermal conduc-
tivity (fig 1(a)) [7], the mass by multiplying 1 × 106 to electron and lattice heat capacity (fig 1(b)) [8],
and the spring term by multiplying 1 × 1018 to the electron-phonon coupling factor (fig 1(c)) [8]. In our
simulation, we used a 10-second-wide Gaussian profile driving force Fd (t) with a standard deviation of
√
5 to describe the intensity of the pulsed laser beam reaching the copper (fig 1(d)).

Proceedings of the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas

40th Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas Physics Conference
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SPP-2022-PA-12-1
 (b) (c) (d)
(a)

Coefficient of Friction

Driving Force
Spring Term
Mass 1
Position Dependent

Constant

Position(m) Position(m) Time(s)

Position(m)

Figure 1: Optimized 10th order polynomial fitting of coupled-oscillator parameters: (a) Coefficient of Friction
(b) Mass 1 (c) Spring term and (d) Driving Force

We used a coupled oscillator model with two masses on a surface connected by spring, where a driving
force directed to the right is applied to m1 . The first case (fig 2(a)) uses a uniform rough surface to
represent constant coefficient of friction, a solid cube to represent the constant mass, and a single spring
to represent constant spring term. The second case (fig 2(b)) uses a gradient color surface to represent
the position dependent coefficient of friction, a cubic container followed by a machine that adds mass
to represent position dependent mass 1, and two spring with different length and number of coils to
represent the position dependent spring term.

Figure 2: Schematic Diagram of the Coupled Oscillator Model, a) constant parameters, and b) position depen-
dent parameters.

The equation of motion of the coupled oscillator model is given by:

d ′
m1 (x1 )x1 (t) = −k(x1 )(x1 (t) − x2 (t)) − f1 (x1 )F1 (t) + Fd (t) (1a)
dt
d ′
m2 x2 (t) = −k(x1 )(x2 (t) − x1 (t)) − f2 (x2 )F2 (t) (1b)
dt
where m1 and m2 are the masses, x1 and x2 are the position, k is the spring term, f1 and f2 are the
position dependent coefficient of friction, F1 and F2 are the frictional force, and Fd (t) is the driving force
with a Gaussian profile. The subscripts 1 and 2 corresponds to m1 and m2 , respectively.
The two masses of the coupled oscillator model experience frictional force from its contact to the
surface, leading to F1 = µ1 m1 g and F2 = µ2 m2 g. Where µ is the velocity dependent coefficient of
friction, m1 and m2 are the mass, and g is gravitational constant. In the velocity dependent coefficient
of friction we consider the shift from static to kinetic friction, express in the equation[9, 10].

µ1 = 1.2 sin(c tan−1 (bx′1 t) − a(bx′2 t) − tan−1 (bx′2 t) (2a)

−1
µ2 = 1.2 sin(c tan (bx′2 t) − a(bx′1 t) − tan −1
(bx′1 t) (2b)

where a = −2, b = 3, c = 1.4, x′1 is the velocity of m1 and x′2 is the velocity of m2 . a, b, and c were
selected such that the kinetic friction is equal to one and will have little effect on the system.
We solved the equation of motion of the two masses (Equation 1(a) and 1(b)) using NDSolve function
in Wolfram Online with initial condition of m1 = m2 = 3m and x′1 = x′2 = 0m/s. We generated position-
time graph with increasing driving force. This graph is used to describe the thermal energy transfer
during pulsed laser ablation. We also record the maximum position of m2 , to investigate the threshold
fluence of the copper metal during pulsed laser ablation.

3 Results and Discussion

Thermal energy transfer in fs PLA has two stages. First is the absorption of the laser energy by the
electron, then the electron transfers the energy to the lattice. The first and second cases exhibit char-
acteristic of the first stage up until 10s as shown in fig 3(a) and 3(b), respectively. Then the coupled

Proceedings of the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas

40th Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas Physics Conference
19–21 October 2022
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 400

Position(m)
300 2N m1

400 (a) 80 (b) 4N m1

200
6N m1

Position(m)
300

Position(m)
2N60 2N 8N m1
100
4N 80 4N 10N m1
200 40
6N 0 6N
2N m2

Position(m)
60 0 10 20 30 40
100 8N20 8N
Time(s) 4N m2
10N 40 10N
0 6N m2
0
0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40 8N m2
20
Time(s) Time(s)
10N m2
0
0 10 20 30 40
Figure 3: Position-time graph with increasing driving force a.) First Case (constant (constant parameters) b.)
Time(s)
Second Case (position dependent parameters)

oscillator model started to deviate from the two-temperature heat transfer model. In the first case, the
position of m1 go down after 10s, but the position of m1 and m2 increased after the position of the two
got closer to one another - this is not possible in the thermal energy transfer of the pulsed laser ablation
for a single shot laser pulse. In the second case the position of m1 did not change or have little change
after 10s. The position of m2 also increase beyond that of m1 which is also not observed in the thermal
energy transfer of the fs PLA.
The maximum position for m2 of each of the cases was taken within the span of 40 seconds at increasing
driving force (from 0.01 Newtons to 10 Newtons) and is shown in fig 3. The two cases showed an increasing
trend of the maximum position at increasing driving force (set into logarithmic interval): the 1st case
have higher increase compared to the second case. The resulting maximum position behaves similarly to
fs PLA.

●
400 ●
●
●
x_2 (m) within 40 s

●
300 ●
●
●
●
200 ● ● 1st Case
●
● ✶ 2nd Case
●
●
100 ● ✶✶
✶✶✶
✶✶
● ✶✶✶✶✶✶✶
✶ ✶ ✶✶
●
✶ ✶ ●
●
✶●
✶●
✶✶✶●
0 ✶
● ✶ ●
● ✶✶✶●
✶ ●●●
✶ ● ✶ ●
✶●
✶● ✶ ●●●
✶ ●
0.01 0.05 0.10 0.50 1 5 10
Driving Force (N)

Figure 4: The maximum position x2 at increasing driving force

The maximum positions were extrapolated and compared to the fitting related studies, as shown in table
1. The same method is also used to determine the threshold fluence in fs PLA studies, whose values
are determined via simulation or experiment. Based on the related studies, threshold fluence determines
at what laser fluence the material surface ablates. The maximum position of m2 increases at increasing
driving force, correlating respectively to temperature increase as the material surface ablates due to
increasing laser fluence. The threshold fluence values were either inside (less than) or outside (greater
than) the range of the x-intercepts, noting the experimental fluence on the 1st case has little difference
to our x-intercept.
The increasing trends for the threshold fluence as the laser fluence increases is similar to the increasing
maximum position of m2 being pushed by the driving force. Despite the threshold fluence having some

Table 1: Extrapolated Maximum Positions and the matching fluence values from related studies

Threshold Fluence
Cases Equation of Trendlines X-Intercepts (based on different literatures/studies)
Simulation Experiment
First y = 348.66ln(x) - 391.99 3.0780 5.2044[11] 3.6673[12]
0.1773[13], 1.1337[14],
Second y = 34.376ln(x) + 4.1505 0.8863 1.8466[15], 1.8448[15], Not Available
0.1513[16], 0.0999[17]

Proceedings of the Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas

40th Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas Physics Conference
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difference to our coupled oscillator model (the y-axis for the fluence being ablation rate/depth and for the
coupled oscillator being temperature represented as the position of mass), the similarities between the
increasing trends on the related threshold fluence and the increasing maximum position of m2 is clear.

4 Conclusion
Thermal energy transfer in femtosecond pulsed laser ablation was modelled using coupled oscillator. Re-
sults exhibit characteristics similar to the two-temperature model within few seconds. After that, the
positions of m1 and m2 exhibited behavior not observed for the thermal energy transfer of the pulsed
laser ablation.

The result of coupled oscillator model has continuous increasing trend similar to the ablation rate of
the two-temperature model from the matching studies. However, the threshold fluence values of the
matching studies have greater variance to the extrapolated x-intercepts of our data cases. Still, with the
results we have obtained, the coupled oscillator model presents capability in representing some features
of thermal energy transfer of pulsed laser ablation.

5 Acknowledgement
This work is supported by the UP System Enhanced Creative Work and Research Grant (ECWRG-2019-
2-04-R).

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