Studies on threshold pressures of sonoluminescence for bubbles with different noble gases

The noble gases inside bubbles may have a profound effect on the threshold pressure of sonoluminescence (SL). In this work, the SL threshold pressures have been measured experimentally for bubbles with different noble gases. Results show that the threshold pressure increases with the decrease of molecular mass for gases inside the bubbles. The simulating temperature values at the collapse are almost equal to each other for different gas bubbles at the threshold pressures. However, when the pressure is above the threshold one, the SL mechanism satisfies the bremsstrahlung. On the basis of the experiments and simulations, we found that firstly water molecules dissociate in the process of cavitation and light emission follows; then, the noble gases ionize with the increase of temperature and the bremsstrahlung occurs. SL is a process from molecular emission to bremsstrahlung.