Experimental findings and 2 dimensional two-temperature model in the multi-pulse ultrafast laser ablation on stainless steel considering the incubation factor

The interaction between ultrashort laser pulses and metal targets is of great interest for machining and micro- or nano-processing applications. An experimental study was conducted on 316L stainless steel using ultrashort pulses with a duration of 280fs and a wavelength of 1.032μm. This study covered fluences ranging from 0.2to5J/cm2 and a number of pulses from 1 up to 200. The analysis of the experimental measurements has allowed us to better understand the process of laser-matter interaction and to obtain key parameters such as incubation effect or the change in the dominant ablation mechanism. By utilizing these parameters and thermophysical and optical dependencies for stainless steel, we have developed a 2D, two-temperature model (TTM), that allows precise and reliable determination of both ablation depth and diameter, which helps to reduce the number of necessary tests and avoid material waste.