We apply the recently improved version of the 0-1 test for chaos to real experimental time series of laser droplet generation process. In particular two marginal regimes of dripping are considered: spontaneous and forced dripping. The outcomes of the test reveal that both spontaneous and forced dripping time series can be characterized as chaotic, which coincides with the previous analysis based on nonlinear time series analysis.

We examine the dynamics of laser droplet generation in dependence on the detachment pulse power. In the absence of the detachment pulse, undulating pendant droplets are formed at the end of a properly fed metal wire due to the impact of the primary laser pulse that induces melting. Eventually, these droplets detach, i.e. overcome the surface tension, because of their increasing mass. We show that this spontaneous dripping is deterministically chaotic by means of a positive largest Lyapunov exponent and a negative divergence. In the presence of the detachment pulse, however, the generation of droplets is fastened depending on the pulse power. At high powers, the spontaneity of dripping is completely overshadowed by the impact of the detachment pulse. Still, amplitude chaos can be detected, which similarly as the spontaneous dripping, is characterized by a positive largest Lyapunov exponent and a negative divergence, thus indicating that the observed dynamics is deterministically chaotic with an attractor as solution in the phase space. In the intermediate regime, i.e. for low and medium detachment pulse powers, the two chaotic states compete for supremacy, yielding an intermittent perioddoubling to amplitude chaos transition, which we characterize by means of recurrence plots and their properties. Altogether, the transition from spontaneous to triggered laser droplet generation is characterized by a chaos-to-chaos transition with an intermediate dynamically nonstationary phase in-between. Since metal droplets can be used in various industrial applications, we hope that the accurate determination of the dynamical properties underlying their formation will facilitate their use and guide future attempts at mathematical modeling.

We propose an experimental setup allowing for the characterization of laser droplet generation in terms of the underlying dynamics, primarily showing that the latter is deterministically chaotic by means of nonlinear time series analysis methods. In particular, we use a laser pulse to melt the end of a properly fed vertically placed metal wire. Due to the interplay of surface tension, gravity force, and light-metal interaction, undulating pendant droplets are formed at the molten end, which eventually completely detach from the wire as a consequence of their increasing mass. We capture the dynamics of this process by employing a high-speed infrared camera, thereby indirectly measuring the temperature of the wire end and the pendant droplets. The time series is subsequently generated as the mean value over the pixel intensity of every infrared snapshot. Finally, we employ methods of nonlinear time series analysis to reconstruct the phase space from the observed variable and test it against determinism and stationarity. After establishing that the observed laser droplet generation is a deterministic and dynamically stationary process, we calculate the spectra of Lyapunov exponents. We obtain a positive largest Lyapunov exponent and a negative divergence, i.e., sum of all the exponents, thus indicating that the observed dynamics is deterministically chaotic with an attractor as solution in the phase space. In addition to characterizing the dynamics of laser droplet generation, we outline industrial applications of the process and point out the significance of our findings for future attempts at mathematical modeling.

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