Laser droplet heating: fast and slow heating regimes.

The heating of a laser-irradiated droplet is analyzed theoretically and numerically by solving the heat transport equation. Two regimes of droplet heating are considered, slow and fast heating. In the slow heating regime, the thermal diffusion term plays an important role and the droplet may not experience explosive vaporization during the lifetime of the laser pulse. In the fast heating regime, the vaporization term plays the dominant role and the temperature profile inside the droplet is similar to the heat production profile except for a thin shell near the surface. Numerical results are presented for the case of water droplets irradiated by 10.6microm laser radiation.