Eur. Phys. J. B (2015) 88: 156
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-60354-4

Regular Article

An electrohydrodynamics model for non-equilibrium electron and phonon transport in metal films after ultra-short pulse laser heating

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
² Center for Phononics and Thermal Energy Science, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, P.R. China

^a e-mail: ronggui.yang@colorado.edu

Received: 5 May 2015
Received in final form: 11 May 2015
Published online: 15 June 2015

Abstract

The electrons and phonons in metal films after ultra-short pulse laser heating are in highly non-equilibrium states not only between the electrons and the phonons but also within the electrons. An electrohydrodynamics model consisting of the balance equations of electron density, energy density of electrons, and energy density of phonons is derived from the coupled non-equilibrium electron and phonon Boltzmann transport equations to study the nonlinear thermal transport by considering the electron density fluctuation and the transient electric current in metal films, after ultra-short pulse laser heating. The temperature evolution is calculated by the coupled electron and phonon Boltzmann transport equations, the electrohydrodynamics model derived in this work, and the two-temperature model. Different laser pulse durations, film thicknesses, and laser fluences are considered. We find that the two-temperature model overestimates the electron temperature at the front surface of the film and underestimates the damage threshold when the nonlinear thermal transport of electrons is important. The electrohydrodynamics model proposed in this work could be a more accurate prediction tool to study the non-equilibrium electron and phonon transport process than the two-temperature model and it is much easier to be solved than the Boltzmann transport equations.