US 8,026,496 B2 · Acoustic crystal sonoluminescent cavitation devices and IR/THz sources

Abstract

An acoustic crystal structure includes defect cavities that concentrate the driving pressure from applied sound waves into the cavities to cavitate gas bubbles in a liquid to produce sonoluminescence. This device may be used to study sonoluminescence or cavitation or to perform sonochemistry, nuclear fusion etc. in the cavities. A waveguide may be operatively coupled to the acoustic crystal to extract, collect and route a band of electromagnetic (EM) radiation around a specified source wavelength to an output port for emission by an antenna to provide an EM source. The waveguide may, for example, be a photonic crystal defect waveguide, a photonic crystal optical fiber or Sommerfeld waveguide. The marriage of the sonoluminescence phenomena with an acoustic crystal and embedded waveguide provides for an efficient source of narrow or broad band IR or THz radiation.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A sonoluminescent cavitation device, comprising:

an acoustic crystal including first and second materials having different acoustic indices, said materials arranged in a periodic array that provides local contrast modulation of the acoustic index in at least one dimension to define a band gap in the acoustic or ultrasonic transmission spectra;
at least one defect cavity in the periodic array that creates a resonance in the band gap;
a liquid in said defect cavity;
a gas dissolved in the liquid;
and
a source of sound waves that are operatively coupled to the periodic array, said sound waves concentrated in said at least one defect cavity to cause the bubble to expand and collapse producing a pulse of black-body radiation.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Acoustic crystal sonoluminescent cavitation devices and IR/THz sources

Life of this patent

Acoustic crystal sonoluminescent cavitation devices and IR/THz sources

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims21