Laser ablation of liquid surface in air induced by laser irradiation through liquid medium

Yuji Utsunomiya, Takashi Kajiwara, Takashi Nishiyama, Kunihito Nagayama, Shiro Kubota, Motonao Nakahara

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The pulse laser ablation of a liquid surface in air when induced by laser irradiation through a liquid medium has been experimentally investigated. A supersonic liquid jet is observed at the liquid-air interface. The liquid surface layer is driven by a plasma plume that is produced by laser ablation at the layer, resulting in a liquid jet. This phenomenon occurs only when an Nd:YAG laser pulse (wavelength: 1064 nm) is focused from the liquid onto air at a low fluence of 20 J/cm2. In this case, as Fresnel's law shows, the incident and reflected electric fields near the liquid surface layer are superposed constructively. In contrast, when the incident laser is focused from air onto the liquid, a liquid jet is produced only at an extremely high fluence, several times larger than that in the former case. The similarities and differences in the liquid jets and atomization processes are studied for several liquid samples, including water, ethanol, and vacuum oil. The laser ablation of the liquid surface is found to depend on the incident laser energy and laser fluence. A pulse laser light source and high-resolution film are required to observe the detailed structure of a liquid jet.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)137-141
Number of pages5
JournalApplied Physics A: Materials Science and Processing
Volume101
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2010

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Chemistry(all)
  • Materials Science(all)

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