  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 ~ 1 ps) and inefficient in superconductors,
exhibiting a strong systematic dependence of the vaporization energy Uv on Tc.
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
quasi-particle (QP) bottleneck mechanism. In contrast, Fermi surface disruption
by hot QPs is proposed to be responsible for CDW state melting.
