Explosive vaporization of small droplets by a high-energy laser beam

Abstract

We have constructed a model of the explosive vaporization of small droplets caused by the absorption of energy from a high-energy laser beam. The model consists of polarizable fluid streaming from the exploded droplet and interacting with laser radiation. A novel criterion for the explosive vaporization in the droplet is introduced, in which the absorbed energy density has to be greater than the restrictive pressure due to surface tension. Self-similarity is invoked to reduce the spherically symmetric problem involving hydrodynamics and Maxwell’s equations to simple quadrature. We have compared our model with experiments. An analytic solution has been obtained in a limiting case.