Surface cleaning from laser-induced cavitation bubbles

When bubbles expand and collapse close to boundaries, a shear flow is generated which is able to remove particles from the surface, thus locally cleaning it. Here the authors demonstrate experimentally with microparticle tracking velocimetry that the strongest forcing of particles occurs during a very brief time interval of the bubble oscillation period. During this interval a jet flow impacts and spreads radially along the surface, thus transporting the particles with it. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.