A technique to study doped ablation in polymethyl methacrylate using molecular dynamics simulation

A doped polymer substrate is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Photons are preferentially absorbed as thermal energy by a spherical portion of a polymethyl methacrylate sample. Once sufficient energy is absorbed to fragment the polymer-labeled cluster and cleave the residual polymer bonds, ejection of material occurs indicating ablation. The mechanism of ejection is analogous to our previous work where a dopant cluster was represented using a cluster of carbon atoms [P.F. Conforti, M. Prasad, B.J. Garrison, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 10 (2008) 6002]. This labeling procedure can serve as an approximate method to qualitatively explore the effects of different parameters without becoming consumed in the details of the simulation setup procedure.