Modeling of Plume Dynamics in Laser Ablation with Application to Nanotubes Synthesis

Abstract

The aim of this study is to find optimal conditions for the formation of carbon nanotubes in a laser furnace. This paper describe our mathematical model and numerical algorithm, and discuss some of the fluid physics underlying this crucial technology. An axisymmetric unsteady computational gas dynamic model of plume expansion into ambiance has been developed. In the present work the vapor gas phase is modeled using the Relaxing TVD scheme in generalized coordinates. A numerical model of pulsed ablated gas is proposed based on the mass, momentum, and energy conservation laws. The proposed model implements a multi-species formulation for concentration of chemical components combined with the compressible Euler equations. To advance the solution in time, this set of equations is integrated numerically by second order Runge-Kutta scheme.