Asymmetric oscillations of endoskeletal antibubbles

Abstract

Antibubbles have been under investigation as potential vehicles in ultrasound-guided drug delivery. It is assumed that antibubbles can expand unhampered, but cannot contract beyond the size of their inner core. In this study, this hypothesis was tested on endoskeletal antibubbles and reference bubbles. These were subjected to 3-cycle pulses of 1 MHz ultrasound, whilst being recorded with a high-speed camera operating at 10 million frames per second. At low acoustic amplitudes (200 kPa), antibubbles and bubbles oscillated symmetrically. At high acoustic amplitudes (1.00 MPa), antibubbles and bubbles oscillated asymmetrically, but antibubbles significantly more so than bubbles. Furthermore, fragmentation and core release were observed at these amplitudes. This finding may have implications for ultrasound-guided drug delivery using antibubbles.