Superheating, melting, and annealing of copper surfaces

Unified description of thermal and nonthermal laser-induced ultrafast structural changes in materials

The ultrafast ionic dynamics in solids induced by intense femtosecond laser excitation are controlled by two fundamentally different yet interrelated phenomena. First, the substantial generation of hot electron-hole pairs by the laser pulse modifies the interatomic bonding strength and characteristics, inducing nonthermal ionic motion. Second, incoherent electron-ion collisions facilitate thermal equilibration between electrons and ions, achieving a uniform temperature on a picosecond timescale. This article presents a unified theoretical description that effectively integrates both processes. Our method is adaptable for use in both ab-initio simulations and extensive molecular dynamics simulations, extending the conventional two-temperature model to incorporate molecular dynamics equations of motion. To demonstrate the efficacy of our approach, we apply it to the laser excitation of silicon thin films. Our simulations closely match experimental observations, accurately reproducing the temporal evolution of the Bragg peaks.

Influence of ultrafast laser processing on amorphous structures - based on molecular dynamics simulation

Ultrafast laser processing technology exhibits exceptional precision and irreplaceable functionality in the fabrication of micron and nanometer-scale devices. However, its short action time presents challenges for observing and studying the interactions between ultrafast lasers and materials. This study employs molecular dynamics simulations to specifically investigate the application of ultrafast laser processing in treating amorphous structural defects on Ni-Fe alloy surfaces. The simulations reveal the impact of energy deposition on the material's crystallization behavior on a nanosecond timescale. It was found that the crystallization temperature increases with the rising rate of temperature change, although the final crystal structure remains unchanged. Enhanced energy deposition accelerates lattice formation, improves atomic ordering, and reduces the crystallization time from 4.5 ns to 3.2 ns. The lattice phase transition is completed within 0.5 ns, and an increased incubation temperature effectively minimizes the proportion of the amorphous phase. The simulation results clearly illustrate the fundamental nucleation and growth mechanisms, providing valuable insights into the effects of ultrafast laser processing on surface lattice structures and atomic dynamics. Moreover, these findings establish a theoretical foundation and offer data support for developing future material processing methods.

Ultraflat Cu(111) foils by surface acoustic wave-assisted annealing

Ultraflat metal foils are essential for semiconductor nanoelectronics applications and nanomaterial epitaxial growth. Numerous efforts have been devoted to metal surface engineering studies in the past decades. However, various challenges persist, including size limitations, polishing non-uniformities, and undesired contaminants. Thus, further exploration of advanced metal surface treatment techniques is essential. Here, we report a physical strategy that utilizes surface acoustic wave assisted annealing to flatten metal foils by eliminating the surface steps, eventually transforming commercial rough metal foils into ultraflat substrates. Large-area, high-quality, smooth 2D materials, including graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), were successfully grown on the resulting flat metal substrates. Further investigation into the oxidation of 2D-material-coated metal foils, both rough and flat, revealed that the hBN-coated flat metal foil exhibits enhanced anti-corrosion properties. Molecular dynamics simulations and density functional theory validate our experimental observations.

Multicoverage Study of Femtosecond Laser-Induced Desorption of CO from Pd(111)

We study the strong coverage dependence of the femtosecond laser-induced desorption of CO from Pd(111) using molecular dynamics simulations that consistently include the effect of the laser-induced hot electrons on both the adsorbates and surface atoms. Adiabatic forces are obtained from a multicoverage neural network potential energy surface that we construct using data from density functional theory calculations for 0.33 and 0.75 monolayer (ML). Our molecular dynamics simulations performed for these two trained coverages and an additional intermediate coverage of 0.60 ML reproduce well the peculiarities of the experimental findings. The performed simulations also permit us to disentangle the relative role played by the excited electrons and phonons on the desorption process and discover interesting properties of the reaction dynamics as the relevance that the precursor physisorption well acquires during the dynamics as coverage increases.

Hierarchical Structuring of Black Silicon Wafers by Ion-Flow-Stimulated Roughening Transition: Fundamentals and Applications for Photovoltaics

Ion-flow-stimulated roughening transition is a phenomenon that may prove useful in the hierarchical structuring of nanostructures. In this work, we have investigated theoretically and experimentally the surface texturing of single-crystal and multi-crystalline silicon wafers irradiated using ion-beam flows. In contrast to previous studies, ions had relatively low energies, whereas flow densities were high enough to induce a quasi-liquid state in the upper silicon layers. The resulting surface modifications reduced the wafer light reflectance to values characteristic of black silicon, widely used in solar energetics. Features of nanostructures on different faces of silicon single crystals were studied numerically based on the mesoscopic Monte Carlo model. We established that the formation of nano-pyramids, ridges, and twisting dune-like structures is due to the stimulated roughening transition effect. The aforementioned variety of modified surface morphologies arises due to the fact that the effects of stimulated surface diffusion of atoms and re-deposition of free atoms on the wafer surface from the near-surface region are manifested to different degrees on different Si faces. It is these two factors that determine the selection of the allowable "trajectories" (evolution paths) of the thermodynamic system along which its Helmholtz free energy, F, decreases, concomitant with an increase in the surface area of the wafer and the corresponding changes in its internal energy, U (dU>0), and entropy, S (dS>0), so that dF=dU - TdS<0, where T is the absolute temperature. The basic theoretical concepts developed were confirmed in experimental studies, the results of which showed that our method could produce, abundantly, black silicon wafers in an environmentally friendly manner compared to traditional chemical etching.

Structure Relaxation and Liquidlike Enhanced Cu Diffusion at the Surface of β-Cu2S Chalcocite

The hitherto unexplored surface structural and dynamical properties of the thermoelectric material β-Cu₂S chalcocite, are uncovered using ab initio molecular dynamics simulations at 450 K. The material exhibits a hybrid crystalline-liquid behavior, with the liquidlike dynamics of the Cu atoms and the crystalline order of the sulfur sublattice. The topmost nanoscale region of the material is predicted to undergo significant structural relaxation, resulting in a ∼10% increase in the distance between the topmost S-layers accompanied by an increased Cu density. Cu diffusion in the interlayer regions of the surface S-sublattice is enhanced (doubled) compared to the bulk value, and an underlying microscopic mechanism, entailing marked emergent surface-induced softening of the S-sublattice vibrational dynamics, is described.

A Model of Ultra-Short Pulsed Laser Ablation of Metal with Considering Plasma Shielding and Non-Fourier Effect

In this paper, a non-Fourier heat conduction model of ultra-short pulsed laser ablation of metal is established that takes into account the effect of the heat source, laser heating of the target, the evaporation and phase explosion of target material, the formation and expansion of the plasma plume, and interaction of the plasma plume with the incoming laser. Temperature dependent optical and thermophysical properties are also considered in the model due to the properties of the target will change over a wide range during the ultra-short pulsed laser ablation process. The results show that the plasma shielding has a great influence on the process of ultra-short pulsed laser ablation, especially at higher laser fluence. The non-Fourier effect has a great influence on the temperature characteristics and ablation depth of the target. The ultra-short pulsed laser ablation can effectively reduce the heat affected zone compared to nanosecond pulsed laser ablation. The comparison between the simulation results and the experimental results in the literature shows that the model with the plasma shielding and the non-Fourier effect can simulate the ultra-short pulsed laser ablation process better.

Physical origins of temperature continuity at an interface between a crystal and its melt

We justify and discuss the physical origins for the assumption of temperature continuity at crystal/melt interfaces by performing atomistic simulations. We additionally answer why the crystal/melt interfaces differ from the typical solid/liquid interfaces, which usually exhibit dissimilarities and a resulting temperature drop. We present results for pure silver modeled using the embedded-atom method and Lennard-Jones potential function and contrast the results with each other. We find that the temperature continuity at an interface between a crystal and its melt originates from the perfect vibrational coupling, which is caused by the interfacial structural diffusivity. This study provides fundamental insights into the heat transfer for cases of extremely large heat flux and thermal gradients occurring during rapid melting and solidification. The findings additionally determine the role of rough surfaces in manipulating the thermal conductance in nanodevices.

Wrinkle-Free Single-Crystal Graphene Wafer Grown on Strain-Engineered Substrates

Wrinkles are ubiquitous for graphene films grown on various substrates by chemical vapor deposition at high temperature due to the strain induced by thermal mismatch between the graphene and substrates, which greatly degrades the extraordinary properties of graphene. Here we show that the wrinkle formation of graphene grown on Cu substrates is strongly dependent on the crystallographic orientations. Wrinkle-free single-crystal graphene was grown on a wafer-scale twin-boundary-free single-crystal Cu(111) thin film fabricated on sapphire substrate through strain engineering. The wrinkle-free feature of graphene originated from the relatively small thermal expansion of the Cu(111) thin film substrate and the relatively strong interfacial coupling between Cu(111) and graphene, based on the strain analyses as well as molecular dynamics simulations. Moreover, we demonstrated the transfer of an ultraflat graphene film onto target substrates from the reusable single-crystal Cu(111)/sapphire growth substrate. The wrinkle-free graphene shows enhanced electrical mobility compared to graphene with wrinkles.

All-photonic drying and sintering process via flash white light combined with deep-UV and near-infrared irradiation for highly conductive copper nano-ink

We developed an ultra-high speed photonic sintering method involving flash white light (FWL) combined with near infrared (NIR) and deep UV light irradiation to produce highly conductive copper nano-ink film. Flash white light irradiation energy and the power of NIR/deep UV were optimized to obtain high conductivity Cu films. Several microscopic and spectroscopic characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), a x-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy were employed to characterize the Cu nano-films. Optimally sintered Cu nano-ink films produced using a deep UV-assisted flash white light sintering technique had the lowest resistivity (7.62 μΩ·cm), which was only 4.5-fold higher than that of bulk Cu film (1.68 μΩ•cm).

Analog of surface melting in a macroscopic nonequilibrium system

Agitated wet granular matter can be considered as a nonequilibrium model system for phase transitions, where the macroscopic particles replace the molecules and the capillary bridges replace molecular bonds. It is demonstrated experimentally that a two-dimensional wet granular crystal driven far from thermal equilibrium melts from its free surface, preceded by an amorphous state. The transition into the surface melting state, as revealed by the bond orientational order parameters, behaves like a first order phase transition, with a threshold being traceable to the rupture energy of a single capillary bridge. The observation of such a transition in the macroscopic nonequilibrium system triggers the question of the universality of surface melting.

Pressure-induced solid-state lattice mending of nanopores by pulse laser annealing

This paper presents the pressure-induced solid-state lattice mending of nanopores in single-crystal copper by femtosecond laser annealing processes. The microscopic mechanism of lattice mending is investigated by a modified continuum-atomistic modeling approach. Three typical lattice mending phases, including (i) the incubation of dislocation nucleation, (ii) plastic deformation under the combined effect of pressure and atomic thermal diffusion, and (iii) lattice recovery and reconstruction, are characterized via the microscopic structure changes and transient thermodynamic trajectories. The simulation results reveal that the structural mending of a pore is originated in heterogeneous nucleation of dislocations from the pore surface. The shear-induced multiple lattice glides are found to significantly contribute to the mending of a nanopore in the process of solid-state structural mending. The mending rates of two different modes, the pressure-induced and the classical unsteady-state atomic diffusion, are estimated and found to be very different from each other, by an order of 10(4). In addition, the location of the pore is also found to significantly influence the annealing threshold. Since the largest amplitude of the pressure wave is built up at a characteristic depth of approximately 45 nm below the irradiated surface, the shock wave will directly impinge on the pore and induce a fast solid-state lattice mending if the pore is located within the lower limit of the range of the characteristic depth. Furthermore, it is also interesting to note that the mending of a nanopore close to the characteristic depth by annealing fluence is generally lower than that of a pore near the surface. These results provide vital insights of photomechanical interactions with the microstructure of metallic solid, and the proposed approach can be further considered and enhanced to predict the mending depth for various defects in the future.

Energy exchange between mesoparticles and their internal degrees of freedom

We present mesoscale equations of motion that lead to a thermodynamically accurate description of the energy exchange between mesoparticles and their internal degrees of freedom. In our approach, energy exchange is done through particle coordinates, rather than momenta, resulting in Galilean invariant equations of motion. The total linear momentum and total energy (including the internal energy of the mesoparticles) are conserved, and no coupling occurs when a mesoparticle is in free flight. We test our method for shock wave propagation in a crystalline polymer, poly(vinylidene fluoride); the mesodynamics results agree very well with all-atom molecular dynamics.

Calorimetry at surfaces using high-resolution core-level photoemission

We have developed a method to measure simultaneously the internal energy of bulk and the first layer atoms of a crystal. The internal energy of bulk and the surface atoms of lithium (110) have been evaluated from 22 K up to above the melting transition, applying the Debye model to the thermal broadening of the respective 1s photoemission lines. Our measurements clearly reveal two phase changes: the known liquid to solid transition and the surface melting, occurring 50 K below the bulk melting point.

Effect of pressure relaxation on the mechanisms of short-pulse laser melting

The kinetics and microscopic mechanisms of laser melting of a thin metal film are investigated in a computational study that combines molecular dynamics simulations with a continuum description of the laser excitation and subsequent relaxation of the conduction band electrons. Two competing melting mechanisms, homogeneous nucleation of liquid regions inside the crystalline material and propagation of melting fronts from external surfaces, are found to be strongly affected by the dynamics of the relaxation of the laser-induced pressure.