On the Analysis of Short-Pulse Laser Heating of Metals Using the Dual Phase Lag Heat Conduction Model

Transient heat conduction in a thin metal film exposed to short-pulse laser heating is studied using the dual phase lag heat conduction model. The initial heat flux distribution in the film, resulting from the temporal distribution function of the laser pulse, together with the zero temperature gradients at the boundaries normally used in literature with the presumption that they are equivalent to negligible boundary heat losses is analyzed in detail in this paper. The analysis presented here shows that using zero temperature gradients at the boundaries within the framework of the dual phase lag heat conduction model does not guarantee negligible boundary heat losses unless the initial heat flux distribution is negligibly small. Depending on the value of the initial heat flux distribution, the presumed negligible heat losses from the boundaries can be even way larger than the heat flux at any location within the film during the picosecond laser heating process. Predictions of the reflectivity change of thin gold films due to a laser short heat pulse using the dual phase lag model with constant phase lags are found to deviate considerably from the experimental data. The dual phase lag model is found to overestimate the transient temperature in the thermalization stage of the laser heating process of metal films, although it is still superior to the parabolic and hyperbolic one-step models.