抄録
Intense laser irradiation to liquids can induce morphological changes such as cavitation, plume ejection, and so on with a distinct laser fluence threshold. The phenomena are classified into three types in viewpoints of their fundamental mechanisms. When a liquid is transparent to laser light, breakdown followed by plasma formation brings about cavitation. When IR laser light excites molecular vibration of a liquid, explosive vaporization is induced. A morphological change of a liquid can be induced also by UV laser light which excites liquid molecules electronically. In this review of Part I, the history and outline of the former two phenomena are summarized, and the third morphological change of a liquid will be described in Part II.
