The processes leading to nonthermal condensate vaporization and charge-density-wave (CDW) melting with femtosecond laser pulses is systematically investigated in different materials. We find that vaporization is relatively slow (${\tau }_v\sim 1$ ps) and inefficient in superconductors, exhibiting a strong systematic dependence of the vaporization energy $U_v$ on $T_c$. In contrast, melting of CDW order proceeds rapidly (${\tau }_m=50$–200 fs) and more efficiently. A quantitative model describing the observed systematic behavior in superconductors is proposed based on a phonon-mediated quasiparticle (QP) bottleneck mechanism. In contrast, Fermi-surface disruption by hot QPs is proposed to be responsible for CDW state melting.

• Received 1 September 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.180507