Thermal analysis of double-layer metal films during femtosecond laser heating

In this paper, the primary interest is the heat effect of the bottom-layer metal on the temperature distribution of the top-layer metal in a double-layer metal structure during femtosecond laser irradiation. The evolution of the surface electron and lattice temperature depends a lot on the thermal parameters of the substrate. The damage threshold can be increased by using a substrate material with high electron-lattice coupling factor. Next, we choose chrome as the bottom-layer material. The results of modeling show that the surface lattice temperature of top-layer gold can be reduced remarkably. For a fixed entire thickness of the double-layer film, there is an optimal proportion of top and bottom layers for which the damage threshold is the highest possible. Also, for increasing the damage threshold, a substrate with higher melting temperature should be chosen.