The single bubble - a hot microlaboratory

Abstract

Experimental and numerical work on single bubbles in liquids, mostly water, is presented. The oscillation properties of acoustically driven bubbles from periodic motion to period-doubling and chaotic dynamics are reviewed. Optic cavitation as a means to prepare single bubble states in conjunction with high-speed optical observations is shown to enable detailed investigations of bubble dynamics, in particular, fast bubble collapse at various conditions. In this way, shock wave and light emission, jet and counter-jet formation near solid walls and the associated erosive action on the surface could be elucidated. Molecular dynamics studies are presented that allow a numerical view into the bubble interior that hitherto is not accessible by experiments.