Active cavitation detection of asymmetrical inertial cavitation

Abstract

The active cavitation detector (ACD) developed in Bob Apfel’s laboratory has often been employed to quantify pressure thresholds for inception of symmetrical inertial cavitation of microbubbles. In the current application, however, a 30-MHz ACD interrogates individual echo-contrast agent bubbles adhering to a Mylar(TM) sheet that are driven into asymmetrical (jet-producing) collapse by a 1-MHz toneburst (>1 MPa pp). The resulting ACD output suggests that asymmetrical bubble collapse is slower than symmetrical collapse, producing less total radiated acoustic power. ACD output mixed with reference sinusoids at 30 MHz and low pass filtered yields Doppler signals that may be useful in quantifying asymmetrical collapses under biomedically relevant conditions, such as on endothelial walls.