Abstract
Plasmonic vapor nanobubbles are currently considered for a wide variety of applications ranging from solar energy harvesting and photoacoustic imaging to nanoparticle-assisted cancer therapy. Yet, due to their small size and unstable nature, their generation and consequences remain difficult to characterize. Here, building on a phase-field model, we report on the existence of strong pressure waves that are emitted when vapor nanobubbles first form around a laser-heated nanoparticle immersed in water and subsequently after bubble rebound. These effects are strongest when the fluid is locally brought high in its supercritical state, which may be realized with a short laser pulse. Because of the greatly out-of-equilibrium nature of nanobubble generation, the waves combine a high-pressure peak with a fast pressure rising time and propagate in water over micron distances, opening the way to induce spatially and temporally localized damage. Discussing the consequences on biological cell membranes, we conclude that acoustic-mediated perforation is more efficient than nanobubble expansion to breach the membrane. Our findings should serve as a guide for optimizing the thermoacoustic conversion efficiency of plasmonic vapor nanobubbles.4 MoreReceived 10 December 2020Accepted 13 May 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.023231Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasCavitationDrops & bubblesThermoacoustic effectCondensed Matter & Materials PhysicsFluid Dynamics
Highlights
Due to their wide range of applications in biomedicine, surface cleaning, and photoacoustic imaging [1,2], plasmonic vapor nanobubbles have received ever increasing attention from the scientific community
We focus on the pressure waves that follow vapor nanobubble generation
We have investigated numerically the process of pressure emission accompanying vapor nanobubble generation around gold nanoparticles illuminated by picosecond or nanosecond laser pulses close to their plasmon resonance frequency
Summary
Due to their wide range of applications in biomedicine, surface cleaning, and photoacoustic imaging [1,2], plasmonic vapor nanobubbles have received ever increasing attention from the scientific community. Their formation involves both the remarkable optical properties of metallic nanoparticles and the unique thermomechanical response of nanoscale vapor blankets. Nanoparticles in solution behave as nanoscale hot spots for the liquid environment In this unique situation, water may undergo a locally quick phase change, as its local temperature approaches the spinodal, around 550 K for water [6,7]. At such small scales, the energy barriers for heterogeneous nucleation are so high that liquid water may be trapped in a metastable state up to temperatures much higher than the normal boiling
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