Figure 8.

Illustration of the laser ablation of metals in liquids at different pulse durations neglecting non-linear effects. Thermal losses (a) and self-shielding by plasma (b) of pulses of different duration regimes. The diagram in (c) demonstrates how the coupling constant of electrons and phonons affects the NP productivity in LAL, depending on the laser pulse duration. A change of the coupling constant was assumed to have no influence on other material properties. In (c), the y-axis scales linearly. The trends shown in the diagram represent the interpretation of the combined results of the discussed literature in Section 2.2.1. In (c), the arrow and the less dense (dashed) line style indicate the effect of a longer coupling time of electrons and phonons of the target material on productivity. Reprinted with permission from [66].