Laser-Beam Interactions with Materials

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-X

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Martin von Allmen

   Pages 1-5

3. Absorption of Laser Light

   • Martin von Allmen

   Pages 6-48

4. Heating by Laser Light

   • Martin von Allmen

   Pages 49-82

5. Melting and Solidification

   • Martin von Allmen

   Pages 83-145

6. Evaporation and Plasma Formation

   • Martin von Allmen

   Pages 146-200

7. Back Matter

   Pages 201-232

   PDF

Lasers, having proven useful in such diverse areas as high­ resolution spectroscopy and the guiding of ferryboats, are cur­ rently enjoying great popularity among materials scientists and engineers. As versatile sources of "pure" energy in a highly concentrated form, lasers have become attractive tools and re­ search instruments in metallurgy, semiconductor technology and engineering. This text treats, from a physicist's point of view, some of the processes that lasers can induce in materials. The field of laser-material interactions is inherently mul­ tidisciplinary. Upon impact of a laser beam on a material, electromagnetic energy is converted first into electronic exci­ tation and then into thermal, chemical and mechanical energy. In the whole process the molecular structure as well as the shape of the material are changed in various ways. Understand­ ing this sequence of events requires knowledge from several branches of physics. A unified presentation of the subject, for the benefit of the materials researcher as well as the advanced student, is attempted here. In order to keep the book reason­ ably trim, I have focused on laser effects in solids such as thin films and technological materials. Related topiCS not cov­ ered are laser-induced chemical reactions in gases and liquids and laser effects in organic or biological materials.

• Absorption
• crystal
• glass
• kinetics
• laser
• optical properties
• phase transition
• segregation
• semiconductor
• spectroscopy
• thin films

• Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bern, Bern, Schweiz

  Martin Allmen

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