Abstract: Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a modern method to prepare many kinds of functional materials.The process can be divided into three stages: laser ablation,plasma expansion,and film growth. There are many complex phenomena in these processes, and we shall briefly describe the current research on the mechanism of PLD.The dynamics of the basic physical processes of the three stages will be explored in detail, with particular emphasis on the work in China.We introduce various models such as the self-consistent unified model covering all three PLD processes, the shock wave plasma expansion model,a new plasma evolution dynamics model based on local energy-momentum conservation,the ablative heat conduction model which includes terms taking into account the heat source,evaporation,plasma shielding,and dynamic physical parameters,and a unified thermal model suitable for higher energy fields which takes into account electron-electron collisions and the density of states effect,and can explain thermophysical effects with pulse widths ranging from nanoseconds to femtoseconds.