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Homogeneous nucleation is considered as a mechanism for rapid thermal melting of solids irradiated with ultrashort laser pulses. Based on classical nucleation theory we show that for sufficient superheating of the solid phase the dynamics of melting is mainly determined by the electron-lattice equilibration rather than by nucleation kinetics. Therefore, complete melting of the excited material volume should occur within a few picoseconds. This time scale lies between the longer time scale for heterogeneous, surface-nucleated melting and the shorter time scale for possible nonthermal melting mechanisms.

Understanding the transfer of spin angular momentum is essential in modern magnetism research. A model case is the generation of magnons in magnetic insulators by heating an adjacent metal film. Here, we reveal the initial steps of this spin Seebeck effect with <27 fs time resolution using terahertz spectroscopy on bilayers of ferrimagnetic yttrium iron garnet and platinum. Upon exciting the metal with an infrared laser pulse, a spin Seebeck current js arises on the same ~100 fs time scale on which the metal electrons thermalize. This observation highlights that efficient spin transfer critically relies on carrier multiplication and is driven by conduction electrons scattering off the metal–insulator interface. Analytical modeling shows that the electrons’ dynamics are almost instantaneously imprinted onto js because their spins have a correlation time of only ~4 fs and deflect the ferrimagnetic moments without inertia. Applications in material characterization, interface probing, spin-noise spectroscopy and terahertz spin pumping emerge.

Silicon irradiated with an ultrashort 800 nm-laser pulse is studied theoretically using a two temperature description that considers the transient free carrier density during and after irradiation. A Drude model is implemented to account for the highly transient optical parameters. We analyze the importance of considering these density-dependent parameters as well as the choice of the Drude collision frequency. In addition, degeneracy and transport effects are investigated. The importance of each of these processes for resulting calculated damage thresholds is studied. We report damage thresholds calculations that are in very good agreement with experimental results over a wide range of pulse durations.