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We describe a three-dimensional dynamical system, which is obtained as a pseudo-spectral approximation to a free boundary problem modeling solid combustion and rapid solidification, and is capable of generating its major dynamical patterns. These patterns include a Hopf bifurcation followed by a sequence of secondary period doubling and a transition to chaos, reverse sequences, and sequences followed by Shilnikov type trajectories. A computer-assisted bifurcation analysis uncovers some novel mechanisms of stability exchange. The most striking of them is an infinite period bifurcation which resembles the classical Shilnikov bifurcation, but instead of a funnel-shaped spiral along which the period is continually increasing, the continuation produced a series of isolas. Each isola is a closed branch of solutions of roughly the same period, and with the same number of oscillations. The isolas corresponding to consecutive numbers of low amplitude oscillations about the equilibrium are adjacent to each other, and appear to accumulate on a saddle-focus homoclinic connection of Shilnikov type.

Thermodynamic analysis of a graded ferroelectric epitaxial film demonstrates that in the equilibrium state the films subdivide into an alternation of polydomain bands consisting of wedge- or lens-shape domains and single-domain bands. Polarization under an external electrical field proceeds through an interband boundary movement due to the growth/shrinkage of the wedge domains. The domain structure and its evolution are determined by the distribution of the spontaneous polarization and dielectric constant. Through film grading, it is possible to design a controlled domain structure with desirable tunability. Graded films exhibit a sharp increase of the dielectric constant as electrical field approaches zero.