Critical conditions of reaction initiation in the PETN during laser heating of light-absorbing nanoparticles

Abstract

This paper describes the micro-hotspot model of laser initiation of energy materials. The relationship of the critical energy density and the temperature of the reaction hotspot in PETN with the nanoparticle radii of 12 metals at a pulse duration at half-height of 14 ns is determined. It is established that, as the nanoparticle radius is about 10 nm, the critical energy density tends to a certain value independent of heat capacity of metal. This is due to the reduction of the ratio of the nanoparticle volume to the volume of the heated PETN layer, which leads to the fact that most of the energy is spent on heating the matrix. It is shown that the critical hotspot temperature depends on both pulse duration and nanoparticle radius. The analytical expressions for the relationships of the critical parameters of reaction initiation with the radius and heat capacity of metal nanoparticles and for the relationship of the critical hotspot temperature with pulse duration are obtained. The invariant binding the critical energy density and the characteristic development time of the reaction is discovered. The results of this paper are necessary for the optimization of the composition of the optical detonator cell.