Single-Bubble Sonoluminescence
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REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS, VOLUME 74, APRIL 2002 Single-bubble sonoluminescence Michael P. Brenner Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Sascha Hilgenfeldt and Detlef Lohse* Department of Applied Physics and J. M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands (Published 13 May 2002) Single-bubble sonoluminescence occurs when an acoustically trapped and periodically driven gas bubble collapses so strongly that the energy focusing at collapse leads to light emission. Detailed experiments have demonstrated the unique properties of this system: the spectrum of the emitted light tends to peak in the ultraviolet and depends strongly on the type of gas dissolved in the liquid; small amounts of trace noble gases or other impurities can dramatically change the amount of light emission, which is also affected by small changes in other operating parameters (mainly forcing pressure, dissolved gas concentration, and liquid temperature). This article reviews experimental and theoretical efforts to understand this phenomenon. The currently available information favors a description of sonoluminescence caused by adiabatic heating of the bubble at collapse, leading to partial ionization of the gas inside the bubble and to thermal emission such as bremsstrahlung. After a brief historical review, the authors survey the major areas of research: Section II describes the classical theory of bubble dynamics, as developed by Rayleigh, Plesset, Prosperetti, and others, while Sec. III describes research on the gas dynamics inside the bubble. Shock waves inside the bubble do not seem to play a prominent role in the process. Section IV discusses the hydrodynamic and chemical stability of the bubble. Stable single-bubble sonoluminescence requires that the bubble be shape stable and diffusively stable, and, together with an energy focusing condition, this fixes the parameter space where light emission occurs. Section V describes experiments and models addressing the origin of the light emission. The final section presents an overview of what is known, and outlines some directions for future research. CONTENTS A. The Blake threshold 451 B. Diffusive stability 452 C. Sonoluminescing bubbles rectify inert gases 454 I. Introduction 426 1. The mechanism 454 A. The discovery of single-bubble sonoluminescence 426 2. Bubble equilibria with chemical reactions 455 B. Structure of the review 427 D. Shape stability 457 C. Historical overview 428 1. Dynamical equations 457 II. Fluid Dynamics of the Flask 435 2. Parametric instability 458 A. Derivation of the Rayleigh-Plesset equation 435 3. Afterbounce instability 459 B. Extensions of the Rayleigh-Plesset equation 437 4. Rayleigh-Taylor instability 460 C. The bubble’s response to weak and strong 5. Parameter dependence of the shape driving 438 instabilities 460 D. The Rayleigh collapse 439 E. Interplay of diffusive equilibria and shape E. Comparison to experiments 439 instabilities 461 F. Sound emission from the bubble 440 F. Other liquids and contaminated liquids 462 G. Bjerknes forces 441 V. Sonoluminescence Light Emission 462 III. The Bubble Interior 442 A. Theories of MBSL: discharge vs hot spot A. Full gas dynamics in the bubble 442 theories 463 1. Inviscid models 443 B. SBSL: A multitude of theories 463 2. Dissipative models 444 C. Narrowing down the field 464 3. Dissipative models including water vapor 445 D. The blackbody model and its failure 465 B. Simple models 448 E. The SBSL bubble as thermal volume emitter 466 1. Homogeneous van der Waals gas without 1. Simple model for bubble opacity 468 heat and mass exchange 448 2. Light emission and comparison with 2. Homogeneous van der Waals gas with heat experiment 469 and mass exchange 449 F. Modeling uncertainties: additional effects 471 C. How accurate are the bubble temperatures? 450 1. Bubble hydrodynamics 471 IV. The Parameter Range of Single-Bubble 2. Water vapor as emitter and quencher of Sonoluminescence 451 light 471 3. Further difficulties in modeling the temperature 472 *Electronic address: [email protected] 4. Modifications of photon-emission processes 472 0034-6861/2002/74(2)/425(60)/$35.00 425 ©2002 The American Physical Society 426 Brenner, Hilgenfeldt, and Lohse: Single-bubble sonoluminescence 5. Towards a more comprehensive model of SBSL light emission 472 G. Line emission in SBSL 472 VI. Summary and Outlook 474 A. An SBSL bubble through its oscillation cycle 474 B. Unanswered questions 475 C. Scientific uses and spinoffs 475 D. Other applications of bubble dynamics and cavitation 476 E. Multibubble fields: in search of a theory 477 Acknowledgments 477 References 477 I. INTRODUCTION A. The discovery of single-bubble sonoluminescence Single-bubble sonoluminescence was discovered in 1989 by Felipe Gaitan, then a graduate student at the University of Mississippi working with Larry Crum (Gaitan, 1990; Gaitan and Crum, 1990; Gaitan et al., 1992). Crum had seen hints of light emission from a single bubble in 1985 (Crum and Reynolds, 1985), and FIG. 1. A sonoluminescing bubble. The dot in the center of Gaitan’s objective for his thesis was to search systemati- the jar is the bubble emitting light. From Crum, 1994. cally for it. Gaitan was carrying out a set of experiments on the oscillation and collapse of bubbles, using a flask of liquid lined with transducers tuned to set up an acous- co-workers demonstrated that their setup indeed gener- tic standing wave at the resonant frequency at the jar. ated a single bubble, undergoing its oscillations at a When the pressure amplitude Pa of the sound waves is fixed, stable position at a pressure antinode of the ultra- ϭ larger than the ambient pressure P0 1 bar, the pressure sound field in the flask. The oscillation frequency f is in the flask becomes negative, putting the liquid under that of the sinusoidal driving sound (typically 20–40 tension. At large enough tension, the liquid breaks apart kHz), but the dynamics of the bubble radius is strongly (cavitation), creating unstable bubble clouds in which nonlinear. Once during each oscillation period, the the bubbles often self-organize into dendritic structures bubble, whose undriven (ambient) radius R0 is typically (streamers; see Neppiras, 1980). These cavitation clouds around 5 m, collapses very rapidly from its maximum ϳ collapse with enormous force, powerful enough to do radius Rmax 50 m to a minimum radius of Rmin serious damage to the surfaces of solid bodies in their ϳ0.5 m, changing its volume by a factor of 1ϫ106 vicinity. (Barber et al., 1992). Figure 3 shows the radius, forcing In his search for single-bubble sonoluminescence, pressure, and light intensity (top to bottom) during this Gaitan at some point found a regime with a moderate Ϸ forcing pressure Pa /P0 1.2– 1.4 and with the water de- gassed to around 20% of its saturated concentration of air. He then observed that ‘‘as the pressure was in- creased, the degassing action of the sound field was re- ducing the number of bubbles, causing the cavitation streamers to become very thin until only a single bubble remained. The remaining bubble was approximately 20 m in radius and [...]wasremarkably stable in position and shape, remained constant in size and seemed to be pulsating in a purely radial mode. With the room lights dimmed, a greenish luminous spot the size of a pinpoint could be seen with the unaided eye, near the bubble’s position in the liquid’’ (Gaitan et al., 1992). The experi- ment is shown in Fig. 1, a sketch of a typical experimen- tal setup for single-bubble sonoluminescence in Fig. 2. At the time of Gaitan’s experiment, all previous work with light-emitting bubbles involved many unstable bubbles being simultaneously created and destroyed. Using Mie scattering to track the volumetric contrac- tions and expansions of the bubbles (Gaitan, 1990; FIG. 2. Sketch of a typical setup for generating sonoluminesc- Gaitan and Crum, 1990; Gaitan et al., 1992) Gaitan and ing bubbles. Rev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 74, No. 2, April 2002 Brenner, Hilgenfeldt, and Lohse: Single-bubble sonoluminescence 427 sonoluminescence (MBSL); see Kuttruff, 1962; Walton and Reynolds, 1984; Brennen, 1995] is also visible as diffuse glowing, in that case no individual, stable bubbles can be identified. The excitement about single- bubble sonoluminescence was driven in large part by a set of experiments by Seth Putterman’s group at UCLA from 1991 to 1997, which exposed further peculiarities, making single-bubble sonoluminescence seem very dif- ferent from MBSL (the experiments of the UCLA group are reviewed by Barber et al., 1997 and Putterman and Weninger, 2000). Was new physics (beyond that im- plied by the collapse mechanism of Lord Rayleigh in 1917) responsible for this difference? Many people were also excited by the fact that single-bubble sonolumines- FIG. 3. Radius R(t), driving pressure P(t), and light intensity cence appeared to be much more controllable than its I(t) from Crum (1994), as measured by Gaitan et al. (1992). A multibubble counterpart, bringing expectations of both negative driving pressure causes the bubble to expand; when good careful scientific studies and the possibility of new the driving pressure changes sign, the bubble collapses, result- technologies, including the harnessing of the energy- ing in a short pulse of light, marked SL. focusing power of SBSL. It is natural that the excitement at first caused specu- process (Crum, 1994). The bubble expansion caused by lation about very exotic conditions inside the bubble, the negative pressure is followed by a violent collapse, such as extremely high temperatures and pressures. during which light is emitted. The process repeats itself Even Hollywood caught on to the excitement, producing with extraordinary precision, as demonstrated by mea- a movie in which the central character created a fusion surements of the phase of the light emission relative to reactor using a single sonoluminescing bubble.