Nucleation of cavitation in vivo
Prof Larry Crum (University of Washington, US)
email: lacuw@uw.edu

The presence of cavitation nuclei are normally required in order to induce cavitation in water-based materials, such as mammalian tissue, as the homogeneous nucleation threshold is beyond the range of most acoustic-pressure generation systems (a notable exception is the “intrinsic threshold” achieved by some histotripsy devices). There are a number of potential models for these nuclei, but one that continues to receive favor is the “crevice model”, in which a pocket of gas is contained in a crack or crevice in a contaminating particle and stabilized against diffusion by the geometry of the crevice. This presentation will present evidence that the crevice model also applies to cavitation nucleation in soft tissue.