Resolving the Sonoluminescence Pulse Shape with a Streak Camera

The shape of the short light pulses emitted from a single air bubble trapped in a resonant sound field in degassed water has been measured directly for the first time with a streak camera. At low driving pressures the pulse shape is nearly Gaussian with a slightly slower decay. With increasing driving pressure the fall time and thereby the width of the pulse increases, while the rise time remains almost constant.