N. V. Dezhkunov

Enhancement of high-frequency acoustic cavitation effects by a low-frequency stimulation

The cavitation effects given by a high-frequency pulsed ultrasound field are studied with and without the stimulation of a low-frequency field. Sonoluminescence intensity and subharmonic one-half intensity of the high-frequency field are measured. The stimulation gives a sharp rise of both subharmonic and sonoluminescence intensities.

Cavitation activity stimulation by low frequency field pulses

The influence of a short-time action of a low-frequency ultrasound on the sonoluminescence generation by a high frequency pulsed field has been studied. This action remarkably lowers the cavitation thresholds and increases the sonoluminescence intensity. The stimulating effect of the low-frequency field action depends on its duration and on the intensities of both fields. Possible mechanisms of this effect are discussed.

Study into mechanisms of the enhancement of multibubble sonoluminescence emission in interacting fields of different frequencies.

The main factor of the enhancement of sonoluminescence (SL) emission by the interaction of two fields of highly different frequencies is the generation of new cavitation nuclei upon collapse of bubbles driven by the low-frequency (LF) field. The factors connected with the direct interaction of the two fields play a significant role in the enhancement of SL emission only in the case when intensities of the fields are less or not much higher than the corresponding thresholds of SL emission. The phenomena of afteraction of the LF field on cavitation generated by the high-frequency field is explained also by the generation of new nuclei upon collapse of bubbles driven by the LF fields.

Enhancement of sonoluminescence emission from a multibubble cavitation zone.

Investigations have been performed on various methods of increasing cavitation activity measured by the intensity of sonoluminescence. It is shown that the effect of the combined action of (a) pulsed modulation of an acoustic field, (b) liquid degassing and cooling and (c) increasing the static pressure considerably exceeds the sum of the effects achieved by each of these methods individually. A more than 250-fold increase of the sonoluminescence intensity has been attained compared with continuous irradiation under normal conditions (room temperature, atmospheric pressure, gas-saturated liquid). An interpretation of the results obtained is proposed.

Multibubble sonoluminescence intensity dependence on liquid temperature at different ultrasound intensities.

It is shown that the influence of liquid temperature on the sonoluminescence (SL) intensity is different depending on the ultrasound intensity. At the ultrasound intensities not much higher than the cavitation appearance threshold the SL intensity increases with the temperature. At the ultrasound intensities considerably exceeding the cavitation threshold the SL intensity decreases with an increase of the temperature. At intermediate ultrasound intensities the SL intensity temperature dependence is extreme: the cavitation activity at first increases with temperature, reaches a maximum and then decreases. Continuous and pulsed modes of irradiation at frequencies 880 and 21.9 kHz were used in experiments.

Cavitation phenomena in pulse modulated ultrasound fields

Sonoluminescence (SL), subharmonic generation (SH) and ultrasound absorption in a cavitation zone generated by pulse modulated fields were studied. It has been shown that SL intensity may be increased due to pulse modulation of an ultrasound field by more than two orders of magnitude as compared to the SL intensity obtained by continuous irradiation. The achieved increase in the erosion rate is smaller with pulse modulation. The ultrasound absorption decreases with the inverse pulse duty ratio (or off/on factor), i.e. clarification effect is found to exist in pulsed fields. The thresholds of studied phenomena increase with inverse pulse duty ratio. The intensity of the subharmonic and of other low-frequency components of the cavitation noise decreases; this allows us to conclude that the decreased bubble volume concentration is mainly caused by a decrease of the large bubbles that have low energy concentration efficiency and make little contribution to the cavitation effects.

Cavitation threshold dependence on the rate of the transducer voltage variation

The cavitation thresholds of subharmonic emission and of sonoluminescence in water have been measured in a focused ultrasound beam by two different methods: (1) by increasing the transducer voltage at different rates; (2) by keeping a chosen constant transducer voltage and waiting for the appearance of the subharmonic or of the sonoluminescence. The thresholds increase with increasing the rate of voltage increase. The waiting time diminishes with the increase of the chosen threshold voltage.

Measurement of the Intensity of Sonoluminescence, Subharmonic Generation and Sound Emission Using Pulsed Ultrasonic Technique

The measurement of the intensity of sonoluminescence, subharmonic generation and sound emission with different pulse parameters is reported using a new method of stimulating the acoustic cavitation effect at high frequency (700 kHz) with a low-frequency (20 kHz) ultrasonic field. It is found that stimulation enhances the intensity of sonoluminescence and subharmonic generation at reduced threshold transducer voltage and inverse pulse duty ratio, while sound emission is oppositely affected. The bi-frequency effect arises due to space–time interaction. This work contributes to the understanding of the mechanism of light emission and nonlinear behavior of bubble dynamics.

Sonoluminescence and acoustic emission spectra at different stages of cavitation zone development

The way in which a cavitation zone develops in a focused pulsed ultrasound field is studied in this work. Sonoluminescence (SL), total hydrophone output and cavitation noise spectra have been recorded across a gradual, smooth increase in applied voltage. It is shown that the cavitation zone passes through a number of stages of evolution, according to increasing ultrasound intensity, decreasing pulse period and increasing ultrasound pulse duration. Sonoluminescence is absent in the first phase and the hydrophone output spectra consists of a main line with two or three harmonics whose intensity is much lower than that of the main (fundamental) line. The second stage sees the onset of SL whose intensity increases smoothly and is accompanied by the appearance of higher harmonics and subharmonics in the cavitation noise spectra. In some cases, the wide-band (WBN) component can be seen in noise spectra during the final part of the second stage. In the third stage, SL intensity increases significantly and often quite sharply, while WBN intensity increases in the same manner. This is accompanied by a synchronous increase in the absorption of ultrasound by the cavitation zone, which is manifested in a sharp decrease in the hydrophone output. In the fourth stage, both SL and WBN intensities tend to decrease despite the increased voltage applied to the transducer. Furthermore, the fundamental line tends to decrease in strength as well, despite the increasing ultrasound intensity. The obtained results clearly identify the different stages of cavitation zone development using cavitation noise spectra analyses. We then hypothesize that three of the above stages may be responsible for three known types of ultrasound action on biological cells: damping viability, reversible cell damage (sonoporation) and irreversible damage/cytotoxicity.

The effect of ultrasonic cavitation on model electrochemical processes

Abstract The effect of ultrasound cavitation of the kinetics of the model reversible electrochemical reaction involving the redox species has been studied. The impact of the pressure pulses, generated by asymmetrically collapsing cavitation bubbles, on the rate of the electrochemical reaction has been analysed within the framework of Marcus theory. The linear growth of the exchange current density (i0) with the ultrasound intensity (J) in the In i0 versus J 1 2 plot has been demonstrated.