Simulation of the thermal transient in an impacted copper surface

Molecular dynamics simulations are performed for thermal transients triggered by collisions of single atoms with a copper substrate. The thermal energy flow induced in the surface area in the immediate vicinity of the impact site is simulated by coupling the system to an external thermal bath and using computational cells of different sizes. It is demonstrated that, by varying the bath parameter, a well-fitted simulation of the real thermal transient is achieved. Those findings can be extended to the simulations of a broad range of surface perturbations by adequately choosing the shapes, boundary conditions and sizes of the simulation cells. The interest of the result stems from the fact that the heat dissipation properties of the impacted surface are obtained in a consistent way instead of being brought from the bulk counterpart.