Devices employing ultrasonic waves to homogenize samples, particularly cells/subcellular structures in suspension; also includes accessories and support devices such as power options, probes, sound enclosures, and more.

Sonication uses sound waves to disrupt substances. An electrical signal is converted into a vibration that can mix solutions, dissolve solids into liquids, and remove dissolved gas from liquids. When sound waves at ultrasonic frequencies (>20 kHz) are used, the process is called ultrasonification.

In the laboratory, sonication can be applied via an ultrasonic probe, also called a sonicator or sonic dismembrator. The probe creates sound waves that produce pressure, causing liquid streaming and rapid bubble formation. The bubbles are very small at the start, but grow and coalesce, vibrate violently, and then collapse in the process called cavitation.

The shear from the cavitation and the liquid eddying caused by the vibrating transducer (probe) can hasten chemical reactions and break intermolecular bonds. This speeds dissolution and can be used for samples that cannot easily be stirred. Sonication is also used to disrupt or deactivate biological materials. Cells release their contents when cell walls are disturbed (sonoporation) and DNA molecules can be reduced to smaller fragments.

Effective disruption depends on a number of variables, including tip amplitude and intensity; temperature; cell concentration; pressure; and vessel capacity and shape

Sonication is used in the pharmaceutical, food and pesticide, and cosmetic industries as well as for inks, paints, and coatings, wood and wood treatment, and metalworking. Other uses include: breaking up soil aggregates; nanoparticle, nanoemulsion, or nanocrystal production; wastewater purification; de-gassing; extracting seaweed polysaccharides, plant oils, anthocyanins, and antioxidant; biofuel production; de-sulfuring crude oils; and extracting microfossils from rock.