Ultrafast laser matter interactions: modeling approaches, challenges, and prospects

Abstract The irradiation of the target surface by an ultrafast femtosecond (fs) laser pulse produces the extreme non-equilibrium states of matter and subsequent phase transformations. Computational modeling and simulation is a very important tool for gaining insight into the physics processes that govern the laser–matter interactions, and, specifically, for quantitative understanding the laser light absorption, electron–ion energy exchange, spallation, melting, warm dense matter regime, vaporization, and expansion of plasma plume. High-fidelity predictive modeling of a variety of these multi-physics processes that take place at various time and length scales is extremely difficult, requiring the coupled multi-physics and multi-scale models. This topical review covers progress and advances in developing the modeling approaches and performing the state-of-the-art simulations of fs laser-pulse interactions with solids and plasmas. A complete kinetic description of a plasma based on the most accurate Vlasov–Maxwell set of equations is first presented and discussed in detail. After that an exact kinetic model that encompasses the microscopic motions of all the individual particles, their charge and current densities, generated electric and magnetic fields, and the effects of these fields on the motion of charged particles in a plasma is briefly reviewed. The methodology of kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) approach that is well suitable for computational studies of the non-linear processes in laser–plasma interactions is then presented. The hydrodynamic models used for the description of plasmas under the assumption of a local thermodynamic equilibrium include the two-fluid and two-temperature model and its simplifications. The two-temperature model coupled with molecular dynamics (MD) method is finally discussed. Examples are illustrated from research areas such as applications of the fully kinetic, PIC, hydrodynamic, and MD models to studies of ultrafast laser–matter interactions. Challenges and prospects in the development of computational models and their applications to the modeling of ultrafast intense laser–solid and laser–plasma interactions are overviewed.