Modeling extreme ultraviolet ablation interactions

Compact extreme ultraviolet (EUV) laser sources can be used for laboratory-scale ablation experiments at intensities of 1 x 10(11) W cm(-2) and higher. The depths of ablation achieved using focused laser output at 46.9nm to irradiate solid targets of aluminium, gold, and copper have been modeled. Two simple models are considered; an adaptation of an ultra-short pulse model, and an ablation velocity model. We show that the attenuation length of the material plays an important role in the physics of the ablation. A more detailed one-dimensional model including absorption by inverse bremsstrahlung absorption and photo-ionization, corrected to include electron degeneracy effects, is used to evaluate the opacity of the ablation plasma and subsequent ablation depths.