Jets from shock wave-induced microbubble collapse

Shock wave-driven microbubble collapse, which sometimes produces high-speed jets, occurs in a wide range of applications involving transient pressure waves and liquid-gas media.

These include, for instance, cavitating flows of fluids containing bubbles and therapeutic shock wave lithotripsy.

Although thoroughly studied through numerical simulations, the small spatial and temporal scales associated with such phenomena make their experimental observation particularly challenging.

Here, shock-induced collapses of micrometric gas bubbles are temporally resolved through ultra-high-speed imaging, which offers unprecedented details on the jetting dynamics.

Such visualizations can be directly compared with a simple model based on Rayleigh-Plesset-type bubble dynamics. 

These results help determine the shock driving conditions required for microbubbles to form jets.