Efficiency of ablation loading and the limiting destruction depth of material irradiated by a high-power laser pulse

The problems of calculating the energy of a substance encompassed by a shock wave (the ablation loading efficiency) and determining the limiting destruction depth of a solid irradiated by a plasma-producing laser beam of intensity varying in a broad range from 10⁸ to 10¹⁴ W cm^-2 are analytically solved. The limiting destruction depth of material is calculated. This depth is a total thickness of the substance layers evaporated and melted during the laser pulse and of a melted substance layer behind the front of a shock wave decaying in a target after the pulse end. For laser pulses with intensities above ~10¹¹ – 10¹² W cm^-2 and duration 20 – 100 ns, the material destruction depth caused by the action of the decaying shock wave substantially exceeds the depth of evaporation and melting of material during irradiation by the laser pulse.