Bubble puzzles: From fundamentals to applications

Abstract

For centuries, bubbles have fascinated artists, engineers, and scientists alike. In spite of century-long research on them, new and often surprising bubble phenomena, features, and applications keep popping up. In this paper I sketch my personal scientific bubble journey, starting with single bubble sonoluminescence, continuing with sound emission and scattering of bubbles, cavitation, snapping shrimp, impact events, air entrainment, surface micro- and nanobubbles, and finally coming to effective force models for bubbles and dispersed bubbly two-phase flow. In particular, I also cover various applications of bubbles, namely in ultrasound diagnostics, drug and gene delivery, piezo-acoustic inkjet printing, immersion lithography, sonochemistry, electrolysis, catalysis, acoustic marine geophysical survey, and bubble drag reduction for naval vessels, and show how these applications crossed my way. I also try to show that good and interesting fundamental science and relevant applications are not a contradiction, but mutually stimulate each other in both directions.