Millimetric granular craters from pulsed laser ablation

• Published in: Physical review. E Vol. 99; no. 3-1; p. 030901
• Main Authors: Marston, J O, Pacheco-Vázquez, F
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.03.2019
• ISSN: 2470-0053
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.99.030901

This Rapid Communication reports on an experimental study of granular craters formed by a mechanism, namely, optical energy, via a pulsed laser focused onto the surface of a granular bed. This represents an insight into granular cratering for two reasons; first, there is no physical contact between the initiation mechanism and the granular media (as typical for impact or explosion craters). Second, the resulting craters are millimetric in scale, which facilitates a test of energy scalings down to a previously unobserved lengthscale. Indeed, we observe a range of energy scalings conforming to D_{c}∼E^{β} with β≈0.31-0.43 depending on the characteristics of the granular media.