We present a mathematical model for Joule heating of an electrolytic solution in a nanopore. The model couples the electrical and thermal dynamics responsible for rapid and extreme superheating of the electrolyte within the nanopore. The model is implemented numerically with a finite element calculation, yielding a time and spatially resolved temperature distribution in the nanopore region. Tem...

Bubbles in DNA are related to fundamental processes such as duplication and transcription. Using a new ensemble technique to trap intermediate states, we present direct measurements of the average length of the denaturation bubble and the statistical weights of the bubble states in the temperature-driven melting of DNA oligomers. For a bubble flanked by double-stranded regions, we find a nuclea...

Ice crystallization in supercooled water has been initiated by focused Nd:YAG laser pulses at 1064 nm wavelength. The pulses of 8 ns duration and up to 2 mJ energy produce a bubble in the supercooled liquid after optical breakdown and plasma formation. The subsequent collapse and disintegration of the bubble into fragments was observed to be followed by ice crystal nucleation in many, but not a...

Nanobubbles on a hydrophilic surface immersed in water and ethanol are inferred from the response of the surface to two consecutive heat pulses with a variable separation time. Bubble nucleation occurs at specific positions on the surface during the first heat pulse but at lower nucleation temperatures and random locations on the second. Nanobubbles are hypothesized to form on collapse of the b...

Density-functional theory is used to study homogeneous bubble nucleation in the stretched Lennard-Jones liquid. We show that the ratio of density-functional to classical nucleation theory free energy barriers should scale with the quantity Dm/Dmspin , the difference in chemical potential between the bulk superheated and the saturated liquid divided by the chemical potential difference between t...

Bubbles can form in biological tissues through ultrasonic activation of natural gas nuclei. The damaging aftereffects raise safety concerns. However, the population of nuclei is currently unknown, and bubble nucleation is stochastic and thus unpredictable. This study investigates the statistical behavior of bubble nucleation experimentally and introduces a model-based analysis to determine the ...

We present a kinetic theory of homogeneous bubble nucleation based on explicit calculation of the single-molecule evaporation and condensation rates as a function of the size of the vapor embryo. The surface condensation rate is calculated from the kinetic theory of gases, and the surface evaporation rate is related to the rate of escape of molecules from a potential well in the field establish...