MEASUREMENTS OF ULTRASONIC CAVITATION IN LIQUIDS AND TISSUE MIMICKING MATERIALS

Today the acoustic cavitation is used in many fields, from industrial applications for the cleaning technology, to the research applications in fields of nanotecnologies and enviromental, up to therapeutic applications in the biomedical field. However it is not yet clear which of the different phenomena induced by acoustic cavitation plays a fundamental role respect to the several applications: from the mechanical effects resulting from the violent collapse of bubbles typically driven at low frequency ( 20-40 kHz), to the chemical effects mostly induced by high frequency ultrasound ( 500-800 KHz), until to the heating effects which dominate in therapeutic applications ( 1-3 MHz). The research is still affected by lack of measuring instruments appropriate to characterize the various techniques which generate ultrasonic cavitation. In this work we will be presented different measurement techniques to assess the acoustic cavitation induced in different liquid and semisolid media, by using different ultrasound sources.