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arXiv · 1902.09331

Explosive, oscillatory, and Leidenfrost boiling at the nanoscale

Thomas Jollans·Michel Orrit
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Abstract

We investigate the different boiling régimes around a single continuously laser-heated 80 nm gold nanoparticle and draw parallels to the classical picture of boiling. Initially, nanoscale boiling takes the form of transient, inertia-driven, unsustainable boiling events characteristic of a nanoscale boiling crisis. At higher heating power, nanoscale boiling is continuous, with a vapor film being sustained during heating for at least up to 20 $μ$s. Only at high heating powers does a substantial stable vapour nanobubble form. At intermediate heating powers, unstable boiling sometimes takes the form of remarkably stable nanobubble oscillations with frequencies between 40 MHz and 60 MHz; frequencies that are consistent with the relevant size scales according to the Rayleigh-Plesset model of bubble oscillation, though how applicable that model is to plasmonic vapor nanobubbles is not clear.

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Thomas Jollans, Michel Orrit. 2019-06-28. Explosive, oscillatory, and Leidenfrost boiling at the nanoscale. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.99.063110

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