Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2011
The increase of reflectivity associated with a strong decrease of the laser penetration depth at the melting threshold of laser irradiated silicon induces a symmetry breaking with formation of a mixture of solid and liquid regions. We present a steady state solution in the case of solid and liquid stripes and we show that the liquid regions are slightly hotter than solid ones in contradiction with the previous idea of an undercooled liquid. The pattern size has to be smaller than a critical value of the order of the laser penetration depth, and can be selected by additional interference and diffraction effects.