Influence of an increase in the transparency on the intense evaporation of metals by optical radiation

It is shown that the presence of a temperature maximum inside a superheated liquid metal layer imposes restrictions on the position and size of a possible region of enhanced transparency ("bleached region"), where the absorption coefficient a of the incident radiation is assumed to be small. The maximum steady-state thickness of a bleached layer is much less than the value of α^–1 in this layer. On the other hand, the optical thickness of the surface layer which retains its metallic properties is not small, i.e., the appearance of a bleached region cannot generally explain the change in the reflection coefficient of an illuminated target under steady-state intense evaporation conditions.