SEPARATING THERMAL, ELECTRONIC, AND TOPOGRAPHIC EFFECTS IN PULSED-LASER MELTING AND SPUTTERING OF GOLD

An attempt was made to separate thermal from electronic effects during laser sputtering of gold by partitioning the target surface energy be tween steady-state electron beam heating and pulsed laser heating. For flat starting surfaces and a peak surface temperature of similar to 2 700 K, the Au translational energy remains (2-3)X higher than classica l expectations and is insensitive to how energy is partitioned between steady-state heating and laser heating. The mean desorption energy is linearly dependent on peak surface temperature, but with a slope of 1 5k(B)T as opposed to the classical 2k(B)T.