Spectrally wide acoustic frequency combs generated using oscillations of polydisperse gas bubble clusters in liquids

Acoustic frequency combs leverage unique properties of the optical frequency comb technology in high-precision measurements and innovative sensing in optically inaccessible environments such as under water, under ground, or inside living organisms. Because acoustic combs with wide spectra would be required for many of these applications but techniques of their generation have not yet been developed, here we propose an approach to the creation of spectrally wide acoustic combs using oscillations of polydisperse gas bubble clusters in liquids. By means of numerical simulations, we demonstrate that clusters consisting of bubbles with precisely controlled sizes can produce wide acoustic spectra composed of equally spaced coherent peaks. We show that under typical experimental conditions, bubble clusters remain stable over time, which is required for a reliable recording of comb signals. We also demonstrate that the spectral composition of combs can be tuned by adjusting the number and size of bubbles in a cluster.