Stable sonoluminescence within a water hammer tube.

The sonoluminescence (SL) from the collapse of a single gas bubble within a liquid can be produced repetitively using an acoustic resonator. An alternative technique using a water hammer tube, producing SL from bubbles of greater size, is described here. A sealed vertical tube partly filled with a liquid and a gas at low pressure is subjected to vertical vibrations. The oscillation of the pressure within the liquid column, due to inertial forces, excites cavitation bubbles to grow and collapse. Rotation is used to confine the bubbles to the axis of the tube. Bright SL emissions were observed in a number of liquids. Repetitive emission was produced from bubbles in condensed phosphoric acid. Bubbles of 0.4 mm ambient radius (containing 2x 10(14) xenon atoms) were excited by vibration at 35 Hz. Approximately 10(12) photons were emitted per collapse in the range 400-700 nm (over four orders of magnitude greater than the brightest SL reported previously), corresponding to a 1% efficiency of the conversion of mechanical energy into light.