# Explosive, oscillatory, and Leidenfrost boiling at the nanoscale

## TL;DR

This study explores various boiling regimes at the nanoscale around laser-heated gold nanoparticles, revealing transient, continuous, and oscillatory boiling behaviors with implications for nanofluidics and heat transfer.

## Contribution

It provides the first detailed characterization of nanoscale boiling regimes, including stable nanobubble oscillations, and compares these phenomena to classical boiling models.

## Key findings

- Transient nanoscale boiling events observed at low power.
- Continuous vapor film formation at moderate power levels.
- Stable nanobubble oscillations with frequencies 40-60 MHz.

## Abstract

We investigate the different boiling r\'egimes 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 $\mu$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.