Microimplosions: cavitation collapse and shock wave emission on a nanosecond time scale.

A streak camera with high spatial and temporal resolution was used for imaging the dynamics of the violent collapse in single-bubble sonoluminescence. The high pressure in the last phase of the bubble collapse leads to the emission of a shock wave, which is launched with a shock velocity of almost 4000 m/s. The shock amplitude decays much faster than approximately 1/r. From the strongly nonlinear propagation the pressure in the vicinity of the bubble can be calculated to be in the range of 40-60 kbar.