Higher harmonics of vibrating gas-filled microspheres. Part two: measurements

Acoustic measurements on diluted Albunex at two driving frequencies (1 and 2 MHz) are reported which show that the level of the second-harmonic response is about 20 dB below the first harmonic at an acoustic pressure amplitude of 50 kPa. It is demonstrated that, under controlled conditions, it is possible to discriminate between Albunex and other scattering/reflecting objects using the non-linear behaviour of the microspheres.     

固体壁面附近激光空泡的动力学特性研究

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Scattering of vortex pairs in 2D easy-plane ferromagnets

Vortex-antivortex pairs in 2D easy-plane ferromagnets have characteristics of solitons in two dimensions. We investigate numerically and analytically the dynamics of such vortex pairs. In particular we simulate numerically the head-on collision of two pairs with different velocities for a wide range of the total linear momentum of the system. If the momentum difference of the two pairs is small, the vortices exchange partners, scatter at an angle depending on this difference, and form two new identical pairs. If it is large, the pairs pass through each other without losing their identity. We also study head-tail collisions. Two identical pairs moving in the same direction are bound into a moving quadrupole in which the two vortices as well as the two antivortices rotate around each other. We study the scattering processes also analytically in the frame of a collective variable theory, where the equations of motion for a system of four vortices constitute an integrable system. The features of the different collision scenarios are fully reproduced by the theory. We finally compare some aspects of the present soliton scattering with the corresponding situation in one dimension. Received 18 September 2001     

Dynamics of mixed protein–surfactant layers adsorbed at the water/air and water/oil interface

Drop and bubble shape tensiometry experiments are performed at the water/air and water/hexane interfaces in order to get more information about the differences in the adsorption layer structure of mixed protein/surfactant systems. For mixtures of β-lactoglobulin and sodium dodecyl sulphate the adsorption at the water/air interface is essentially a competitive process between protein/surfactant complexes and free surfactant molecules, while the water/oil interface is essentially covered by the complexes.     

Vortex dynamics of collapsing bubbles: Impact on the boundary layer measured by chronoamperometry

Cavitation bubbles collapsing in the vicinity to a solid substrate induce intense micro-convection at the solid. Here we study the transient near-wall flows generated by single collapsing bubbles by chronoamperometric measurements synchronously coupled with high-speed imaging. The individual bubbles are created at confined positions by a focused laser pulse. They reach a maximum expansion radius of approximately 425 μm. Several stand-off distances to the flat solid boundary are investigated and all distances are chosen sufficiently large that no gas phase of the expanding and collapsing bubble touches the solid directly. With a microelectrode embedded into the substrate, the time-resolved perturbations in the liquid shear layer are probed by means of a chronoamperometric technique. The measurements of electric current are synchronized with high-speed imaging of the bubble dynamics. The perturbations of the near-wall layer are found to result mainly from ring vortices created by the jetting bubble. Other bubble induced flows, such as the jet and flows following the radial bubble oscillations are perceptible with this technique, but show a minor influence at the stand-off distances investigated.     

Evaluation of the properties of daughter bubbles generated by inertial cavitation of preformed microbubbles

Inertial cavitation (IC) of the preformed microbubbles is being investigated for ultrasound imaging and therapeutic applications. However, microbubbles rupture during IC, creating smaller daughter bubbles (DBs), which may cause undesired bioeffects in the target region. Thus, it is important to determine the properties of DBs to achieve controllable cavitation activity for applications. In this study, we theoretically calculated the dissolution dynamics of sulfur hexafluoride bubbles. Then, we applied a 1-MHz single tone burst with different peak negative pressures (PNPs) and pulse lengths (PLs), and multiple 5-MHz tone bursts with fixed acoustic conditions to elicit IC of the preformed SonoVue microbubbles and scattering of DBs, respectively. After the IC and scattering signals were received by a 7.5-MHz transducer, time- and frequency-domain analysis was performed to obtain the IC dose and scattering intensity curve. The theoretical dissolution curves and measured scattering intensity curves were combined to determine the effect of the incident pulse parameters on the lifetime, mean radius and distribution range of DBs. Increased PNP reduced the lifetime and mean size of the DBs population and narrowed the size distribution. The proportion of small DBs (less than resonance size) increased from 36.83% to 85.98% with an increase in the PNP from 0.6 to 1.6 MPa. Moreover, increased PL caused a shift of the DB population to the smaller bubbles with shorter lifetime and narrower distribution. The proportion of small bubbles increased from 25.74% to 95.08% as the PL was increased from 5 to 100 µs. Finally, increased IC dose caused a smaller mean size, shorter lifetime and narrower distribution in the DB population. These results provide new insight into the relationship between the incident acoustic parameters and the properties of DBs, and a feasible strategy for achieving controllable cavitation activity in applications.     

Near‐Infrared‐Activated Nanocalorifiers in Microcapsules: Vapor Bubble Generation for In Vivo Enhanced Cancer Therapy

Photothermal therapy based on gold nanostructures has been widely investigated as a state‐of‐the‐art noninvasive therapy approach. Because single nanoparticles cannot harvest sufficient energy, self‐assemblies of small plasmonic particles into large aggregates are required for enhanced photothermal performance. Self‐assembled gold nanorods in lipid bilayer‐modified microcapsules are shown to localize at tumor sites, generate vapor bubbles under near‐infrared light exposure, and subsequently damage tumor tissues. The polyelectrolyte multilayer enables dense packing of gold nanorods during the assembly process, which leads to the formation of vapor bubbles around the excited capsules. The resulting vapor bubbles achieve a high efficiency of suppressing tumor growth compared to single gold nanorods. In vivo experiments demonstrated the ability of soft‐polymer multilayer microcapsules to cross the biological barriers of the body and localize at target tissues.     

Pseudo-potential caculations of positron annihilation rates in bubbles of helium contained in the metals Mg,Ag and Au

Abstract

A pseudo-potential technique has been applied to calculate the annihilation rates for positrons in bubbles of helium gas in gold and silver. The positron pseudo-wavefunction in each case was found to be in a surface state of the metal, the exact form of which displayed a slight dependance on the density of the helium gas. The annihilation rate of the positron was the sum of a nearly constant surface rate and a strongly density dependant annihilation rate with the helium electrons. There is a trend for annihilation with the helium to be greater in metals with low free electron densities, the helium in such metals resting closer to the metal surface thus increasing the overlap of the positron wavefunction with the helium.     

Improvement of Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry in bubbly flow measurements as applied to river characterization for kinetic turbines

Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry (ADV) can measure flow velocities in three directions in experimental facilities and field applications. Based on the Doppler shift effect, ADV can accurately resolve the quasi-instantaneous flow field at frequencies of up to approximately 200 Hz. However, this technique is sensitive to operating conditions that can lead to contaminated signals containing large amplitude spikes, a disadvantage of ADV. Aliasing of the Doppler signal creates these spikes. Such a situation occurs when large particles intersect the sampling volume or acoustic waves. For example during the characterization of river velocities, sediments floating near the riverbed cause aliasing from particles, and more importantly, surface entrained air bubbles contaminate the ADV signal. Spikes due to air bubbles not only increase the standard deviation of the velocity, but also corrupt the autocorrelation and power spectra. As some of these spikes appear like velocity fluctuations, developing accurate despiking procedures is an important requirement during post-processing of ADV velocity measurements in bubbly flow applications. A new hybrid method is introduced which has advantages over conventional despiking methods such as the acceleration thresholding method and the phase-space thresholding method when using ADV in bubbly flow. ADV river velocity measurements near kinetic turbines demonstrate the proposed method. This method is applicable to other bubbly flow applications to characterize the liquid phase using ADV.