Thermal ablation of a copper foil surface by a single femtosecond laser pulse of duration 120 fs and wavelength 800 nm was investigated herein both theoretically and experimentally. A 1D two-temperature model with temperature-dependent material properties was considered, including the extended Drude model for dynamic optical properties. The rapid phase change and phase explosion models were incorporated to simulate the material ablation process. The simulated ablation depths agree well with the experimental measurements for the high laser fluence regime ranging from 6.1 to 63.4 j/cm(2). (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.