An improved theory of thermoelasticity for ultrafast heating of materials using short and ultrashort laser pulses.

• A thermoelastic theory for fast and ultrafast heating of materials is proposed. • Sign of temperature gradient rate indicate the precedence scenario in heat equation. • The calculated displacements are in very good agreement with the experiments. • Ablation surface temperature is significantly higher for ultrashort laser pulses. • As the laser pulse duration decreases, sensitivity to relaxation times increases. This paper introduces an improved thermoelastic theory designed specifically to address the challenges posed by fast and ultrafast heating of materials. The proposed theory incorporates a time delay in the temperature gradient and introduces the rate of temperature gradient as an additional term in the heat equation. This term accounts for the phase lag and the precedence of the temperature gradient and heat flux vector. By leveraging the sign of the temperature gradient rate, the theory automatically determines the precedence of either the temperature gradient or the heat flux vector. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed theory, experiments reported in the literature were simulated using several theories, namely the classical, Lord-Schulman (LS), Green-Lindsay (GL), dual-phase-lag (DPL), and the presented theory. The simulations considered the effects of relaxation times and pulse duration on the results. The findings reveal that for pulse durations shorter than 50 ps, the second-order time derivative of the temperature gradient becomes a crucial term in the energy equation for accurately predicting temperature profiles. Additionally, as the pulse duration decreases, the sensitivity to relaxation times increases. Regarding the surface temperature corresponding to the material ablation threshold, it is observed that for an 80 fs laser pulse, the ablation temperature falls between the boiling and critical temperatures, significantly higher than the boiling temperature associated with the ablation by a 270 ps pulse duration. Lastly, the simulation results exhibit a high level of agreement with the experimental data, particularly in terms of displacements, further validating the accuracy of the presented simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]