Light-matter interaction at rough surfaces: a morphological perspective on laser-induced periodic surface structures

TL;DR

This study employs ab-initio electromagnetic simulations to explore how surface roughness and polarization affect light absorption and the formation of laser-induced periodic surface structures, revealing the sensitivity of structures to initial asymmetries.

Contribution

It introduces a statistical modeling approach for realistic rough surfaces and analyzes the impact of morphological features on laser energy absorption and structure formation.

Findings

Circular polarization enhances sensitivity to surface asymmetries.

Surface roughness parameters significantly influence energy absorption patterns.

Morphological features determine the shape of resulting periodic structures.

Abstract

We use ab-initio electromagnetic simulations to investigate light absorption by rough surfaces in the context of the formation of laser-induced periodic surface structures. Our approach involves modeling a realistic rough surface using a statistical description of its continuous height distribution via a corresponding correlation function. We study the influence of incident light polarization and various statistical properties of surface roughness, such as root-mean-square height and correlation length, on the distribution of absorbed laser energy. By analyzing light absorption in different layers of the surface selvedge, we elucidate how different features of surface morphology influence the shape of the resulting periodic surface structures. We show that circularly polarized laser pulses are highly sensitive to initial or progressively developing asymmetries in surface roughness.