Microfluidic fabrication of stable gas-filled microcapsules for acoustic contrast enhancement.
We introduce a facile approach for the production of gas-filled microcapsules designed to withstand high pressures. We exploit microfluidics to fabricate water-filled microcapsules that are then externally triggered to become gas-filled, thus making them more echogenic. In addition, the gas-filled microcapsules have a solid polymer shell making them resistant to pressure-induced buckling, which makes them more mechanically robust than traditional prestabilized microbubbles; this should increase the potential of their utility for acoustic imaging of porous media with high hydrostatic pressures such as oil reservoirs.
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Department of Physics, Harvard University , 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States.
Alireza
A
Abbaspourrad
Wynter J
WJ
Duncanson
Natalia
N
Lebedeva
Shin-Hyun
SH
Kim
Aleksandr P
AP
Zhushma
Sujit S
SS
Datta
Paul A
PA
Dayton
Sergei S
SS
Sheiko
Michael
M
Rubinstein
David A
DA
Weitz
D000162:Acoustics; D002214:Capsules; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods*
D002214:Capsules