Laser-induced desorption of overlayer films off a heated metal substrate

The temperature-induced desorption of adsorbed overlayer films with thicknesses between 4 and 200 ML off a suddenly heated metal substrate is studied using molecular-dynamics simulation. We observe that the rapid heating vaporizes the surface-near part of the overlayer film. The initial heating-induced thermoelastic pressure and the vapor pressure in the vapor film drive the remaining film as a large relatively cold cluster away from the surface. In our simulations, the material present in the developing vapor film amounts to roughly 2 ML and is quite independent of the overlayer film thickness. For cluster thicknesses beyond 40 ML, the desorption time increases only little with film thickness, while the resulting cluster velocity decreases only slightly.