Effect of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability on maximum reachable temperatures in laser-induced bubbles

Laser-induced bubbles provide an effective vehicle to achieve high-energy concentrations and maximum temperatures in bubble luminescence phenomena. One limitation to the temperatures that can be achieved is the development of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) during the instants previous to the bubble maximum compression. For a given fluid, the control parameters of the experiment are: the bubble maximum radius, the bubble ambient radius, the initial perturbations of the bubble, and the liquid pressure at infinity. In this work, experiments using laser-induced bubbles in a highly viscous phosphoric acid were performed in order to determine the achievable parameters values in the phase space. The effect of R(max), R(0), a(2)(i), a(3)(i), and p(∞) on the maximum temperature achieved by the gas contents inside the bubble were numerically determined. The results show for each static pressure an optimum region for maximum temperatures of the gas contents bounded by the RTI.