We have published a new article in Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, in the special issue on ‘Flow and heat transfer in medical science and applications’. This work was the result of the collaboration with Dr. Jan Krizek and Prof. Christophe Moser from EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland). Last year Spring, David & Jelle visited the group of prof. Moser at EPFL. This group has a lot of experience with needle-free jet injection actuated by a pulsed laser. During the visit, Jelle performed experiments together with Dr. Jan Krizek with the pulsed laser set-up. These results were compared with experimental results in Twente with the continuous-wave laser set-up.
In the published paper, we show that both types of lasers produce similar bubble dynamics. As this bubble is the first step of the laser-actuated jet injection, this allows for a good comparison between the two types of lasers. Nonetheless, there are slight differences between the resulting bubbles. For example, continuous-wave laser is slightly less energy efficient, and less reproducible, which can be explained by heat dissipation and the stochastic nature of bubble formation. On the other hand, the continuous-wave laser is more affordable and much smaller in size, which is beneficial for the application of needle-free jet injection.
The paper is openly accessible:
Graphical abstract highlighting the experiment. A bubble is generated by lasers on two different timescales (ns and ms), but nonetheless creating similar bubble dynamics.
