Cavitation bubble dynamics in microfluidic gaps of variable height

We study experimentally the dynamics of laser-induced cavitation bubbles created inside a narrow gap. The gap height, h, is varied from 15 to 400 μm and the resulting bubble dynamics is compared to a semiunbounded fluid. The cavitation bubbles are created with pulsed laser light at constant laser energy and are imaged with a high-speed camera. The bubble lifetime increases with decreasing gap height by up to 50% whereas the maximum projected bubble radius remains constant. Comparing the radial dynamics to potential flow models, we find that with smaller gaps, the bubble-induced flow becomes essentially planar, thus slower flows with reduced shear. These findings might have important consequences for microfluidic applications where it is desirable to tune the strength and range of the interactions such as in the case of cell lysis and cell membrane poration.