SONOLUMINESCENCE - SOUND INTO LIGHT

Bubbles floating in a glass of water do more than catch the light, sometimes they can produce it. A focused roar of sound energy can cause air bubbles to emit flashes lasting trillionths of a second. The cool blueness of this radiance is misleading: imploding shock waves rebounding through a bubble's interior can raise its temperature far above that of the sun's surface. This paper attempts to explain the mechanism of this phenomena termed `sonoluminescence' based on experimental observations that examine the parameters that influence it. The luminescence is seen to be caused by ultraviolet radiation emitted due to the acoustic waves.